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Divio 
BV  3280  .P8  E8 
E185g-  James  Carut^ers  Rhea, 

A  prince  of  the  church  in 
India 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/princeofchurchinOOewin 


Rev.    Kali   Charan   Chatterjee,   D.D.    (Washington  and 

Jefferson    1894,   Edinburgh    1010).     This  portrait 

was  taken  in  Edinburgh,  Scotland,  in  1910. 


A  Prince  of  the  Church 
in  India 

Being  a  Record  of  the  Life  of  the  Rev.  Kali  Charan 
*  Chatter jee,  D.D.,for  Forty-eight  Years  a  Mis- 
sionary at  Hoshyarpurj  Punjab,  India 


BY 

J.  C.  R.  EWING,  D.D.,LL.D. 

Companion  of  the  Indian  Empire,  late  Vice-Chancellor  of  the 

University  of  the  Punjab,  President  of  the  Forman  Christian 

College,  and  Missionary  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 


ILLUSTRATED 


New  York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming   H.  Revell  Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York :  1 58  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago  :  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto  :  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London :  2 1  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh :     100    Princes    Street 


INTRODUCTION 

NO  one  who  ever  saw  Kali  Charan  Chat- 
ter jee  during  the  last  twenty  years  of 
his  life  will  ever  forget  him.     The 
venerable  figure  with  the  long  flowing  beard 
and  the  clear  and  tranquil  eyes,  the  kindly  dig- 
nified demeanor,  the  noble  spirit  abide  in  the 
memory.     He  was  a  character  of  no  common 
quality,  a  personality  of  distinction.     A  long 
line  of  high  Hindu  ancestry  lay  back  of  him. 
As  a  boy  he  came  under  the  kindling,  trans- 
forming  influence   of   the    great  missionary, 
Alexander  Duff,  and  he  passed  out  from  that 
influence  a  changed  man  of  firm  and  assured 
Christian  faith  and  of  unfailing  Christian  pur- 
pose.   Those  who  declare  that  Christianity  can 
not  really  reach  the  Indian  mind  or  that  no  high 
caste  Hindu  can  ever  lay  aside  his  Hindu  con- 
ceptions   and   become    a    thorough    Christian 
would  have  had  their  declaration  utterly  shat- 
tered in  meeting  Dr.  Chatterjee.     He  was  a 
Christian  in  spirit,  in  manner  of  life,  in  charac- 
ter, in  conviction.    He  knew  the  Christian  doc- 

3 


4  Introduction 

trine  as  well  as  any  Western  theologian.  He 
lived  the  Christian  life  as  truly  as  any  Western 
saint. 

Dr.  Chatter jee  was  a  thoroughly  wholesome 
and  well  balanced  character.  He  was  not  of 
the  same  type  as  that  remarkable  man,  Nehe- 
miah  Goveh.  Goveh  was  a  saint  of  the  sort 
produced  by  the  imperfect  commingling  of  a 
philosophic  Indian  personality  with  the  sacer- 
dotal and  sacramental  type  of  Christian.  Dr. 
Chatter  jee  was  deeply  devout  and  he  was  a 
scholar  of  Indian  philosophy  and  he  was  a  lover 
of  the  Church,  but  he  was  a  healthy,  hearty 
active  leader  of  men.  He  had  good  gifts  of 
organization  and  managed  a  large  mission  sta- 
tion with  all  the  efficiency  of  a  Western  admin- 
istrator. In  his  work  he  won  all  men's  friend- 
ship. The  Indian  people  loved  him  and  Eng- 
lishmen and  Americans  held  him  in  high  es- 
teem. For  many  years  he  ministered  to  the 
foreign  community  in  his  station  as  well  as  to 
his  great  flock  of  Indian  Christians.  He  was 
the  outstanding  Indian  Christian  in  Northern 
India.  No  leader  of  the  Indian  Church  was 
more  respected  and  trusted  by  Indians  and  mis- 
sionaries alike.  A  few  score  men  like  him 
would  change  the  whole  religious  situation  in 
India. 


Introduction  5 

Dr.  Chatterjee  was  known  both  in  America 
and  Great  Britain.  His  last  visit  was  in  19 10 
at  the  time  of  the  World  Missionary  Confer- 
ence in  Edinburgh  where  he  was  one  of  the 
conspicuous  figures  and  where  the  University 
of  Edinburgh  honored  itself  and  him  together 
in  the  way  described  in  the  sketch.  In  all  such 
associations,  Dr.  Chatterjee  moved  with  ease 
and  confidence  and  the  perfect  simplicity  of 
his  true  and  honest  spirit. 

No  one  in  India  was  so  well  fitted  to  write 
this  little  memorial  as  Dr.  Ewing.  Dr.  Ewing 
went  to  India  in  1879  and  no  one  else  knew 
Dr.  Chatterjee  better  than  he.  No  one  also 
knows  the  Pan  jab  better.  Dr.  Ewing  has  spent 
all  his  missionary  life  there  and  would  be  se- 
lected by  every  one  who  knows  the  Panjab  as 
the  most  distinguished  citizen  among  all  its 
European  or  American  residents.  He  has 
served  four  times  as  Vice-Chancellor  of  the 
University  of  the  Panjab,  has  been  decorated 
and  again  and  again  honored  by  the  British 
Government,  and  is  held  in  unbounded  confi- 
dence and  regard  by  Mohammedan,  Hindu  and 
Sikh. 

Dr.  Ewing  has  condensed  the  story  into  the 
most  compact  limits.  It  is  a  noble  picture 
which  he  has  drawn  of  a  rich  and  devoted  life. 


6  Introduction 

He  has  made  no  missionary  argument,  nor 
suggested  any  missionary  apologetic.  But  no 
apologetic  or  argument  could  equal  the  appeal 
and  evidence  of  such  a  life.  The  cause  which 
can  produce  such  men  and  hold  their  undying 
loyalty  needs  no  other  vindication  or  defense. 
One  such  man  is  worth  any  expenditure  and 
from  the  life  or  one  such  flows  influences  which 
spread  deep  and  wide  through  India  and  which 
abide  forever. 

Robert  E.  Speer. 
New  York. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Bengal  and  the  Panjab  .   .11 
II.  Early  Years 19 

III.  School  and  College  Days  in 

Calcutta 29 

IV.  Earlier  Years  in  the  Panjab   .     40 
V.  Beginnings  in  Hoshyarpur      .     51 

VI.  Work  Among  the  Lowly  .       .     62 

VII.  His  Place  as  Leader  in  the 

Church 72 

VIII.  Honors  and  Appreciations       .     90 

IX.  The  Man  as  Seen  by  His  Col- 
leagues        103 

X.  The  Old  and  the  New     .       .116 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGB 


Rev.   Kali   Charan   Chatterjee,   D.D.,  in 

1910 Title 

Dr.  Chatterjee,  while  in  the  United  States 

in  1887 42 

Mrs.  Chatterjee 78 

The  opening  of  the  "K.  C.  Chatterjee 
Science  Building"  of  the  Forman 
Christian  College 104 


BENGAL  AND  THE  PANJAB 

The  ideals  that  lie  at  the  heart  of  the  Gospel  of 
Christ  are  slowly  but  surely  permeating  every 
part  of  Hindu  society  and  modifying  every  phase 
of  Hindu  thought. — Sir  Narayana  Chandavarka. 

IN  the  history  of  Christian  Missions  in 
India,  there  have  been  few  events  of 
more  significance  than  that  which  oc- 
curred in  the  City  of  Calcutta  on  a  July  morn- 
ing in  the  year  1830.  It  was  then  that  Alex- 
ander Duff  opened  a  school,  in  which  the  Eng- 
lish language  was  to  be  largely  employed  as  the 
medium  of  instruction.  It  was  his  conviction 
that  the  time  had  come,  when  the  learning  of 
the  West  should  be  made  available  to  the  eager 
youth  of  the  East,  and  that  by  making  them 
familiar  with  the  treasures  of  English  Litera- 
ture, he,  as  a  Christian  missionary,  would  be 
opening  for  them  the  way  to  an  intelligent  ap- 
preciation of  the  great  fundamental  facts  of 
Christianity.    This  he  believed  would  result  in 

11 


12       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

the  dissemination  of  Christian  truth  amongst 
the  multitude  who  would  eventually  be  reached 
and  influenced  most  effectually  by  their  edu- 
cated fellow-countrymen.  The  new  method 
met  with  no  little  opposition.  As  an  innova- 
tion, it  startled  many  of  those  whose  aims  were 
identical  with  his  own.  Remonstrances  poured 
in.  It  was  predicted  that  the  immediate  result 
of  the  system  would  be  to  "deluge  Calcutta 
with  rogues  and  villains."  That  a  brilliant 
scholar  and  orator  such  as  he  should  devote 
several  hours  of  each  day  to  the  task  of  teach- 
ing the  English  Alphabet  to  a  group  of  Bengali 
youths,  appeared  to  some  the  extreme  of  folly. 
To  them  it  seemed  nothing  but  hopeless  and 
meaningless  drudgery,  and  the  devotion  of 
one's  time  to  it  most  reprehensible  in  a  minister 
of  the  Gospel,  who  had  been  commissioned  to 
"preach  the  Word." 

As  the  years  passed,  the  institution  thus 
founded,  became  the  center  of  a  remarkable 
movement,  affecting  not  only  the  growth  of 
the  Church,  but  less  directly,  the  entire  educa- 
tional policy  of  the  Government. 

It  is  no  part  of  the  present  purpose  to  deal 
with  those  great  problems  in  Evangelization, 
concerning  which  widely  divergent  views  have 
been  held  by  good  and  wise  men.    It  is  enough 


Bengal  and  the  Panjab  13 

to  say  here  that  the  comparatively  early  out- 
come of  the  new  method  was  such  as  to  con- 
vince even  the  most  sceptical  and  to  lead  to 
widespread  imitation  throughout  the  entire 
country. 

His  work  opened  a  new  missionary  era  in 
India.  Western  thought  caused  a  great  fer- 
ment in  a  multitude  of  minds.  Shortly  there- 
after the  English  language  became  the  official 
tongue  of  the  Empire.  That  it  should  be  so 
was  decided  at  the  Council  Board  of  India 
under  Lord  Bentinck,  and  perhaps  no  more 
momentous  decision  was  ever  formulated  there. 

The  results  produced  by  English  education 
in  India  are  essentially  revolutionary.  To  this 
new  Education  is  largely  due  the  awakening  of 
the  people,  and  the  creation  of  a  desire  to  have 
some  share  in  the  great  world  drama  that  is 
being  played.  Those  who  resolved  upon  this 
policy  in  1854  were  not  incapable  of  anticipat- 
ing the  almost  inevitable  outcome  of  the  scheme 
agreed  upon.  They  were  broad-minded 
enough  to  institute  it  and  to  await  in  calmness 
the  result,  seeing  that  in  this  way  alone  could 
the  moral  responsibility  of  England  to  India 
be  discharged.  All  honor  to  the  men  who  re- 
fused to  share  in  a  policy  of  keeping  the  people 
in  comparative  ignorance,  although  that  would 


14       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

presumably  have  rendered  the  task  of  govern- 
ing India  less  difficult  and  perplexing. 

In  the  days  of  Alexander  Duff  the  time  was 
ripe  for  such  an  enterprise  as  his.  There  were 
practically  no  "half-way  houses"  between  the 
more  or  less  gross  forms  of  idol  worship  on  the 
one  hand,  and  Christianity  on  the  other.  In 
the  case  of  many  who  were  no  longer  able  to 
tolerate  the  grosser  elements  of  their  ancestral 
faith,  the  choice  lay  between  an  entire  denial 
of  all  spiritual  religion  and  an  acceptance  of, 
at  least,  some  of  the  great  truths  which  the 
Christian  Scriptures  had  presented  to  their 
minds. 

One  after  another,  in  spite  of  the  most  stren- 
uous effort,  failed  to  find  any  middle  ground 
upon  which  to  stand,  and  was  impelled  to  face 
social  ostracism  and  bitterest  persecution  by 
the  conviction  that  in  Jesus  Christ  alone  was  to 
be  found  that  which  his  heart  craved.  Of  these 
the  first  was  baptized  in  1832,  and  subsequent 
years  witnessed  the  acceptance  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  as  Saviour,  by  a  not  inconsiderable  num- 
ber of  the  brightest  young  men  of  Bengal. 

Of  these  some  entered  upon  missionary 
work,  others  upon  Government  service  in  their 
own  Province,  and  still  others,  by  no  means 


Bengal  and  the  Pan  jab  15 

few  in  number,  found  their  life  work  in  dis- 
tant parts  of  the  country. 

Of  these  last,  a  larger  number  migrated  to 
the  Pan  jab  than  to  any  other  Province.  The 
reason  for  this  is  fairly  obvious.  The  years 
during  which  the  first  foundations  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  were  being  laid  in  the  new  region 
far  to  the  Northwest,  were  those  in  which  the 
first-fruits  of  the  labors  of  Dr.  Duff  and  his 
colleagues  were  most  fully  becoming  manifest 
in  Bengal. 

The  spiritual  fathers  of  the  young  Bengali 
Christians,  with  a  splendid  breadth  of  sym- 
pathy for  other  branches  of  the  Church  of 
Christ,  gladly  encouraged  them  to  heed  the 
calls  to  service,  which  began  to  come  to  them 
from  the  rapidly  opening  fields  to  the  North. 

Mission  schools  in  Ludhiana,  Lahore,  Am- 
ritsar,  Peshawar,  Rawalpindi,  Multan,  Jaland- 
har,  Saharanpur,  Dehra,  Batala,  Gujranwala 
and  Sialkot,  all,  in  fact,  of  the  advanced 
schools  established  by  the  Presbyterian  and 
Church  of  England  Missions  to  the  north  and 
west  of  Delhi,  shared  in  the  helpful  labors  of 
these  men,  who,  equipped  with  such  excellent 
training  as  the  Scottish  colleges  had  given, 
them  in  Calcutta,  were  able  to  enter  at  once 
upon  effective  service,  in  a  land  whose  vernacu- 


16       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

lars,  were  at  the  outset,  almost  entirely  unfa- 
miliar to  them. 

The  demand  for  an  English  education  began 
to  show  itself.  These  men  were  prepared  to 
supply  it,  and  pupils  came  in  crowds  to  the 
schools,  where  the  daily  study  of  the  Bible 
was  an  established  part  of  the  curriculum. 
Each  Christian  teacher  became  a  missionary, 
and  it  is  unquestionably  true  that  the  mighty 
influence  exerted  by  the  schools  referred  to,  and 
by  others  as  well,  was  largely  due  to  the  pres- 
ence in  them,  during  the  first  decades  of  their 
existence,  of  men  trained  at  the  feet  of  Dr. 
Duff,  his  associates,  and  their  immediate  suc- 
cessors. 

Some  of  these  entered  the  Gospel  ministry, 
others  spent  long  and  useful  lives  as  teachers. 
The  things  God  wrought  through  them  cannot 
be  adequately  estimated  now,  and  it  is  no  part 
of  the  present  purpose  to  attempt  to  measure 
them. 

Of  the  life  of  one  of  them,  this  little  book 
will  attempt  to  tell  the  story.  It  is  a  story  that 
deserves  to  be  rehearsed,  for  it  is  a  testimony 
to  the  way  in  which  God  can  purify  and  beau- 
tify and  energize  a  devoted  life.  It  may  also, 
we  trust,  serve  as  a  source  of  encouragement 
and  inspiration  to  others  who  are,  it  may  be, 


Bengal  and  the  Panjab  17 

in  these  later  days,  seeking  to  discern  the  will 
of  God  with  reference  to  their  own  lives. 

On  May  31st,  1916,  there  passed  to  his  eter- 
.ial  rest,  one  of  India's  great  sons,  Kali  Charan 
Chatter jee;  perhaps  not  great  as  the  world 
counts  greatness;  for  although  he  was  much 
esteemed  and  beloved  by  thousands  in  India, 
Europe  and  America,  and  rose  to  a  position  of 
prominence  in  his  own  Church,  yet  the  very 
nature  of  the  service  which  occupied  his  life 
precluded  his  taking  a  place  amongst  those 
most  widely  known  even  in  his  own  country. 
His  life  and  the  secret  of  its  efficiency  and 
power  were  summed  up  in  the  last  words  ut- 
tered by  him  as  surrounded  by  his  family,  he 
calmly  awaited  the  end.  That  utterance  was, 
"I  am  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ.,, 

As  on  the  day  following  that  closing  scene 
we  stood  by  his  grave  in  the  cemetery  at  Hosh- 
yarpur,  surrounded  by  a  great  multitude, 
some  of  whom  he  had  led  to  Christ,  and  all  of 
whom  had  gathered  to  mourn  his  departure 
and  render  their  tribute  to  his  memory,  all  felt 
afresh  something  of  the  extraordinary  beauty 
and  usefulness  of  the  life  that  had  been  spent 
so  largely  and  so  unselfishly  in  that  great  dis- 
trict of  the  Panjab,  where  he  had  founded  and 
led  the  Christian  Church  for  more  than  two 


18       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

score  years.  No  adequate  picture  of  a  life  such 
as  his  could  possibly  be  drawn  which  would 
leave  out  of  sight  the  transformations  wrought 
in  the  lives  of  thousands  who  came  under  the 
direct  and  indirect  influence  of  his  life. 

But  before  we  enter  upon  any  attempt  to  tell 
of  what  he  did,  let  us  glance  at  some  of  the 
outstanding  facts  of  his  early  days,  as  our  best 
means  of  understanding  in  some  measure,  the 
character  which  left  so  large  an  impress  upon 
great  numbers  of  people  of  so  many  types  and 
such  diverse  forms  of  faith. 


II 

EARLY  YEARS 

No  study  of  the  Veda  nor  oblation,  no  gift  of 
alms,  nor  round  of  strict  observance  can  lead  the 
inwardly  depraved  to  heaven. — Laws  of  Manu 

a.  97. 

KALI  CHARAN  CHATTERJEE  was 
born  on  August  23d,  1839,  at  Sukh- 
char,  a  village  situated  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  river  Hugh,  some  eight  miles  north  of 
Calcutta.  His  father's  name  was  Ram  Hari 
Chatter jee,  a  Kulin  Brahman  of  the  Radhiya 
class.  This  class  of  Brahmans  traces  its  de- 
scent from  five  priests,  who  are  said  to  have 
been  brought  from  Kanauj  by  Raja  Adhisar  of 
East  Bengal,  in  the  ninth  century  a.d.  Priests 
competent  to  perform  the  Vedic  sacrifices 
could  only  be  found  in  the  capitals  of  the  great 
Hindu  Kings;  hence  this  importation,  and  the 
descendants  of  those  who  were  brought  from 
such  a  distance  are  naturally  proud  of  their 
lineage.  The  modern  forms  of  the  names  of 
the  five  sections  of  the  Radhiya  Brahmans  are 

19 


20       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

Mukerjee;  Banerjee;  Chatterjee;  Ganguli  and 
Ghosal.  All  are  known  as  Kulin  Brahmans,  or 
Brahmans  of  good  family  or  lineage,  and  in- 
deed are  sometimes  designated  as  the  Brah- 
mans of  the  Brahmans.  To  this  lineage  belong 
such  distinguished  men  of  the  present  day  as 
Mr.  W.  C.  Banerjee,  Sir  Guru  Das  Banerjee 
of  Calcutta  and  the  late  Sir  Protul  Chandra 
Chatterjee  of  Lahore.  The  subject  of  our 
sketch  was  thus,  as  we  see,  born  to  a  social 
rank  second  to  none  in  Hindu  Society.  Dur- 
ing his  early  years,  he  was  left  largely  to 
the  charge  of  an  Aunt,  his  mother's  sister,  and 
to  her  he  owed  much.  His  father,  as  manager 
of  a  part  of  the  estate  of  the  Raja  of  Subha 
Bazar,  was  absent  from  his  home  a  large  por- 
tion of  each  year  and  his  mother  was  obliged 
to  spend  much  of  her  time  in  the  management 
of  household  affairs. 

Throughout  life,  he  loved  to  speak  of  the 
influence  exercised  upon  him  in  the  days  of  his 
childhood  by  his  aunt,  who,  as  a  widow  from 
her  childhood,  devoted  much  of  her  time  to  the 
memorizing  of  the  Shastras,  the  religious  books 
of  her  faith,  to  prayer  and  to  alms-giving.  She 
appears  to  have  taught  her  young  charge  to 
serve  the  gods,  and  to  have  delighted  in  relat- 
ing to  him  many  stories  of  their  prowess,  as 


Early  Years  21 

she  had  gathered  them  from  the  Puranas,  or 
the  eighteen  books  of  comparatively  modern 
Hinduism,  the  Ramayana  and  the  Mahabha- 
rata,  the  great  epic  poems  of  India,  through 
the  recitations  of  the  Pandits. 

In  the  home  at  Sukhchar,  the  gods  of  the 
Hindu  Pantheon  were  recognized  and  wor- 
shipped ;  especially  the  images  of  Kali,1  Shiva2 
and  Krishna3  to  each  of  of  which  was  accorded 
a  place  in  a  little  temple  within  the  house.  As 
a  Sakta,  or  worshipper  of  the  Sakti,  or  female 
counterpart  of  Shiva,  the  father  of  the  family 
was  wont  to  offer  goats  and  occasionally  buf- 
faloes before  the  image  of  Kali.  In  a  sense 
it  may  be  said  that  the  children  were  brought 
up  in  a  faith  in  which  "without  the  shedding 
of  blood  there  is  no  remission  of  sins." 

At  the  age  of  five  Kali  Char  an  entered  the 
village  school,  where  he  was  taught  Reading, 
Writing  and  Arithmetic.  To  the  end  of  his 
life,  he  was  able  to  repeat  a  Sanscrit  passage 
from  a  little  book  called  the  Shishubodhak,  ap- 
parently used  as  a  moral  text-book  in  the 
school,  the  substance  of  which  is  this,  "Regard 
other  people's  wives  as  your  mother,  other  peo- 

1  Or  Durga,  the  consort  of  Shiva. 

2  The  third  person  of  the  Hindu  Triad. 

3  An  incarnation  of  Vishnu. 


22       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

pie's  things  as  stones  and  consider  all  souls  as 
your  own  soul." 

The  most  important  ceremony  in  the  life  of 
every  Hindu  lad  of  the  Brahman,  Kshatriya 
and  Vaishya  castes  was  performed,  in  his  case, 
at  the  age  of  eight  years,  when  he  was  invested 
with  the  sacred  thread,  called  Upanayana,  the 
symbol  of  the  Dwija,  or  twice-born.  The 
thread,  or  Yajnopavita,  in  the  case  of  a  Brah- 
man, consists  of  a  cotton  cord  of  three  strands, 
worn  over  the  left  shoulder.  The  cord  worn 
by  a  Kshatriya  is  made  of  hemp,  and  that  worn 
by  a  Vaishya  of  wool.  The  ritual  of  initiation 
to  the  number  of  the  Twice-Born,  as  per- 
formed in  the  Brahman  family,  may  be  briefly 
described  as  follows: 

The  head  of  the  boy  is  shaved  and  his  ears 
pierced  with  tiny  silver  pins  prepared  for  this 
occasion.  After  this  he  is  bathed  and  dressed 
in  the  garb  of  a  mendicant  and  caused,  while 
facing  the  sun,  to  walk  twice  around  the  sacred 
fire.  The  ofhciating  priest,  by  repeating  the 
Gayatri1  ten  times,  consecrates  the  Yajnopa- 
vita and  places  it  on  the  shoulder  of  the  novi- 
tiate. After  this,  he  is  required  to  ask  alms  of 
each  of  the  assembled  company,  and  is  then  ini- 
tiated into  the  daily  use  of  the  Gayatri,  and  on 

1 A  spell  of  peculiar  efficacy. 


i  Early  Years  23 

the  morning  and  evening  prayers,  or  Sand- 
hyas.  The  ceremony  is  concluded  by  the  bind- 
ing on  of  a  girdle  of  munja  grass.  The  Gaya- 
tri  prayer  referred  to  above,  may  be  freely 
rendered  into  English  as  follows : — "We  medi- 
tate on  the  excellent  glory  of  the  divine  life- 
giver.  May  he  stimulate  our  understanding." 
Other  exhortations  such  as  these,  which  follow, 
form  a  part  of  the  ceremony,  which  we  have 
attempted  to  describe  in  outline: — Bathe  every 
day ;  offer  oblations  of  water  to  the  gods,  holy 
sages  and  departed  ancestors;  and  neglect  not 
to  feed  the  sacred  fire  with  fuel.  Abstain  from 
meat,  perfumes,  unguents,  sensuality,  wrath, 
covetousness,  dancing,  music,  gambling,  de- 
traction of  others,  falsehood,  impurity  of  all 
kinds,  and  never  injure  any  being.  Never  bow 
your  head  to  make  obeisance  to  one  who  is 
not  a  Brahman.  When  saluted  by  a  man  of  a 
class  other  than  your  own,  say  only,  "Victory 
be  unto  you !  From  this  day  the  Brahm  dwells 
in  you;  keep  yourself  therefore  pure." 

In  estimating  the  influences  that  operated  in 
shaping  the  ideas  and  character  at  the  most  im- 
pressionable period  of  his  life,  of  such  a  lad  as 
the  one  of  whom  we  write,  this  ceremony  of 
investiture  can  be  given  no  second  place.  Long 
years  afterwards,  in  speaking  of  the  occasion, 


24       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

he  referred  to  the  profound  impression  made 
upon  him  by  the  idea  then  emphasized  that  he 
should  renounce  the  world  and  consider  him- 
self as  the  "temple  of  the  divine  spirit"  and 
that  he  should  abstain  from  everything  low 
and  degrading. 

Shortly  after  the  ceremony,  just  referred  to, 
Kali  Char  an  became  a  pupil  of  the  Anglo  Ver- 
nacular High  School  conducted  by  the  C.  M.  S. 
at  Agarparah,  a  distance  of  some  two  miles 
from  his  father's  house.  The  object  in  view 
was  that  he  might  learn  the  English  language, 
but  in  truth  it  was  there  that  he  acquired  his 
first  acquaintance  with  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures. The  Head  Master,  Babu  Guru  Charan 
Bose,  was  a  man  of  strong  and  earnest  Chris- 
tian character,  and  every  one  of  his  nine  asso- 
ciates was  also  a  Christian.  The  exemplary 
and  consistent  lives  of  the  Head  Master  and  of 
one  of  his  assistants,  in  particular,  powerfully 
influenced  many  of  the  pupils.  Young  Chat- 
ter jee,  unusually  thoughtful  for  his  years,  soon 
began  to  compare  the  life  and  character  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  with  those  of  the  gods  he 
had  been  taught  to  worship.  He  spent  much 
time  in  the  reading  of  the  Mahabharata,  the 
Ramayana,  and  the  Puranas;  and  became 
greatly  interested  in  contrasting  their  contents 


Early  Years  25 

with  those  of  the  Bible.  As  a  result  of  this 
study  he  soon  arrived  at  the  definite  conviction 
that  Jesus  is  indeed  "holy,  harmless  and  unde- 
filed,"  adopted  His  precepts  and  made  them  the 
guiding  principles  of  his  life. 

At  about  the  same  time,  he  won  first  place 
in  the  Scripture  examination  of  the  school,  and 
received  as  a  prize,  a  beautifully  bound  copy 
of  the  Bible.  Joining  with  three  fellow  stu- 
dents, in  the  careful  reading  of  this  volume 
and  in  prayer  that  God  might  show  them  the 
light  and  guide  them  into  His  Truth,  this  group 
of  lads  early  became  impressed  by  such  pass- 
ages as  the  following: 

"He  hath  made  him  to  be  sin  for  us,  who  knew 
no  sin;  that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness 
of  God  in  Him." 

"Who  His  own  Self  bare  our  sins  in  His  own 
Body  on  the  tree,  that  we  being  dead  unto  sin 
might  live  unto  righteousness;  by  whose  stripes 
we  are  healed." 

"He  gave  His  life  a  ransom  for  many." 

Of  this  group  of  seekers  after  light  and  the 
progress  made  by  them,  their  leader,  in  after 
years,  left  this  record: — "Passages  like  these 
convinced  us  that  Christ's  death  and  sufferings 
were  vicarious — He  died  for  our  sins  and  in  our 
stead — so  that  it  is  not  enough  to  receive  Him 
as  our  Teacher  and  Guide,  but  also  as  our  sin- 


26       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

offering  to  reconcile  us  to  God.  This  doctrine 
became  a  stumbling  block  in  the  path  of  our 
progress  for  a  time,  and  we  hesitated  to  accept 
it,  feeling  satisfied  to  follow  Christ  as  our  Guru 
and  Leader.  It  was  not  until  we  carefully 
considered  the  5th  Chapter  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  especially  the  verses  twelve  and 
eighteen,  that  all  our  hesitation  was  removed, 
and  we  accepted  Him  in  all  His  fullness  as  our 
Teacher  and  Saviour.  We  prayed  over  this 
discovery  and  thanked  God  for  it.  We  deter- 
mined to  make  an  open  profession  of  our  faith 
in  Christ." 

The  worship  of  idols  was  forthwith  aban- 
doned, as  were  also  others  of  the  rites  and 
ceremonies  of  Hinduism,  which  had  now  be- 
come obnoxious  to  these  young  inquirers.  But 
the  public  declaration  of  their  faith  upon  which 
they  had  resolved,  was  not  yet  to  be  made. 
Difficulties,  which  in  the  first  warmth  of  con- 
viction they  had  not  measured,  began  to  appear 
as,  at  least,  possible  ground  for  postponement, 
or  even  of  a  final  decision  to  serve  as  secret 
disciples. 

At  about  this  time  a  senior  student  of  the 
school  made  public  profession  of  faith  in  Christ 
and  was  baptized.  A  storm  of  persecution 
burst  upon  him.  Driven  from  his  home,  sep- 
arated from  friends  and  relatives,  he  was  at 


Early  Years  27 

once  esteemed  an  outcast  from  society  and 
was  abused  and  mocked  wherever  he  went. 
The  pressure  put  upon  him  was  overwhelming, 
greater  than  anything  that  can  be  easily  ima- 
gined by  those  who  have  not  themselves  been 
personal  witnesses  of  such  scenes  of  struggle 
as  not  infrequently  follow  upon  a  decision  to 
obey  the  Divine  command,  at  whatever  cost. 
In  this  case  human  weakness  triumphed,  the 
youth  abandoned  the  struggle,  recanted  his 
newly  found  faith,  and  returned  to  Hinduism. 
This  event  seriously  disturbed  the  mind  of 
young  Chatter jee,  and  greatly  weakened  his 
determination  to  profess  openly  his  faith.  He, 
not  unnaturally,  feared  that,  in  the  time  of  test- 
ing, he  too  might  fail.  The  temptation  came 
to  him  which  has  assailed  many.  The  sugges- 
tion was  that  he  remain  a  secret  disciple,  and 
try  to  serve  God  through  Christ,  though 
nominally  a  Hindu.  But,  in  dwelling  upon  this 
as  a  possible  way  of  doing  the  will  of  God,  he 
was  able  to  find  no  rest.  The  words  of  Christ 
could  not  be  driven  from  his  mind,  "Whoso- 
ever shall  confess  his  sins  before  men,  him 
will  I  confess  also  before  my  Father  in 
heaven;  but  whosoever  will  not  confess  me 
before  men,  him  will  I  not  confess  before  my 
Father  in  heaven." 

Finally,  a  conclusion  was  reached.    A  pub- 


28       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India f 

lie  profession  of  faith  was  seen  to  be  neces- 
sary. Baptism  must  be  received  at  whatever 
cost.  This  was  the  mind  of  Christ  and  it 
must  be  fulfilled  in  a  simple  dependence  upon 
His  grace  and  power  for  that  help,  without 
which  even  the  strongest  would  surely  fall. 

Realizing  the  serious  nature  of  the  many  ob- 
stacles, which  would  inevitably  confront  them 
in  their  determination  to  unite  with  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  were  it  to  be  carried  into  effect 
at  Agarparah,  in  the  midst  of  acquaintances 
and  relatives,  the  four  young  friends  re- 
solved, if  possible,  to  migrate  from  the  school, 
where  they  had  learned  so  much  of  the  Way 
of  Life,  to  the  Christian  College  in  Calcutta. 
They  knew  there  were  many  Christian  con- 
verts there  and  expected  to  receive  from  them, 
as  well  as  from  Dr.  Duff  and  his  colleagues 
that  sympathy  and  protection  of  which  they 
were  assured  that  they  would  shortly  stand  in 
sore  need.  In  this  expectation,  they  were  not, 
as  we  shall  later  learn,  disappointed.  Mean- 
while, they  succeeded  in  persuading  their 
parents  and  guardians  to  consent  to  their  de- 
parture for  Calcutta,  where,  in  the  early  part 
of  1854,  they  found  themselves  admitted  as 
regular  pupils  in  the  School  department  of 
the  College. 


Ill 


SCHOOL  AND  COLLEGE  DAYS  IN 
CALCUTTA 

The  tidal  wave  of  deeper  souls 
Into  our  inmost  being  rolls. 
— Longfellow. 

IT  was  at  the  time  of  the  Durga  Puja 
festival  in  the  month  of  October  of  the 
year  1854,  that  Kali  Charan  took  his 
first  open  and  public  step  in  the  direction  of 
separating  himself  from  the  social  and  re- 
ligious life  of  his  own  people.  He  refused  to 
take  any  part  in  the  festival,  and  definitely  in- 
formed his  father  of  his  purpose  to  become 
a  Christian  and  to  be  publicly  baptized.  To 
the  father  the  idea  seemed  so  preposterous 
that,  at  first,  he  could  not  believe  in  the  serious- 
ness of  the  son's  intention.  When,  however, 
he  came  to  recognize  that  the  lad  had  formed 
a  definite  purpose,  he  became  greatly  troubled 
and  solemnly  warned  him  of  the  results  of 
the  course  which  he  contemplated.  Amongst 
these,  his  being  cast  out  of  his  home  and 

29 


30       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

ostracised  from  all  his  friends  and  relatives, 
were  perhaps  the  most  conspicuously  pre- 
sented. But  none  of  these  things  moved  him. 
On  the  fourth  day  of  the  following  month,  he 
wrote  a  letter,  which  he  arranged  should  be 
delivered  after  he  had  left  for  school.  In  this 
he  announced  his  determination  not  to  return 
home  at  the  close  of  the  day,  but  to  go  to  the 
Free  Church  Mission  House  and  ask  for  bap- 
tism. 

This  plan  was  carried  into  effect,  and,  hav- 
ing accompanied  some  of  the  Christian  students 
of  his  classes  to  the  Mission  House,  he  ap- 
plied for  baptism.  Dr.  Duff,  being  at  the 
time  absent  in  Scotland,  the  young  man  was 
cordially  welcomed  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  David 
Ewart,  the  Superintendent  of  the  Mission,  and 
four  days  later,  i.  e.  on  November  8th,  1854, 
lie  was  baptized  by  him  in  the  Free  Church 
situated  on  Wellesley  Street.  The  relation  be- 
tween the  young  convert  and  Dr.  Ewart  was, 
from  the  outset,  one  of  peculiar  confidence  and 
affection,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  over- 
estimate the  influence  of  that  close  association 
upon  the  long  life  and  work  of  the  young  man 
whose  mind  and  heart  were  then  being  pre- 
pared for  the  struggles  and  victories  of  later 
years. 

During  the  past  three  or  four  scores  of 


School  and  College  Days  in  Calcutta     31 

years  remarkable  changes  have  been  witnessed 
in  the  attitude  of  the  people  of  India  toward 
caste  and  all  that  the  system  involves  in  its 
relation  to  the  individual  Hindu.  The  spread 
of  education,  the  introduction  of  new  facili- 
ties for  travel  and  communication,  the  increas- 
ing frequency  of  visits  to  Europe  and  America, 
together  with  the  growth  of  independent 
thought  and  action,  have  served  to  loosen,  in 
some  measure,  the  bonds  which,  for  long 
centuries,  had  held  in  subjection  the  entire 
Hindu  people.  This  relaxation  of  caste  rules 
has  been  much  more  rapid  in  its  operation  in 
Northwestern  India  than  elsewhere ;  neverthe- 
less the  process  of  emancipation  is  visible 
throughout  the  country.  In  the  days  of  Kali 
Charan  Chatter  jee's  boyhood,  the  people  of 
Bengal,  with  the  exception  of  the  very  few, 
neither  shared  in  nor  desired  such  emancipa- 
tion. To  the  Bengalis  pollution  of  caste 
was  dangerous,  not  only  to  the  one  guilty  of 
its  violation,  but  to  all  the  members  of  his 
family  as  well,  dead,  living  and  unborn, 
and  in  less  degree  to  other  members  of  his 
caste. 

The  very  thought  of  stepping  beyond  caste 
regulations  and  becoming  thus  numbered 
amongst  the  base-born,  and  those  destined  to 
everlasting,  hopeless  degradation  and  misery, 


32        A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

must  have  caused  the  lad  to  shrink  in  horror 
from  such  a  course,  when  it  was  first  sug- 
gested to  him.  In  after  life  it  was  not  his 
wont  to  speak  much  of  the  things  which  he 
had  been  called  upon  to  suffer.  He  came  to 
regard  them  as  of  exceeding  small  importance 
when  weighed  against  what  he  had  obtained 
in  Christ,  and  yet  we  know  he  literally  gave 
up  all  as  soon  as  he  heard  the  call.  His  rela- 
tions and  friends  cast  him  out  from  home,  and 
regarded  him  as  dead  and  worse,  for  had  he 
not  brought  disgrace  upon  them  all?  Every 
purely  worldly  and  human  consideration  would 
have  led  him  to  determine  upon  a  life  of  hid- 
den discipleship.  But  in  the  face  of  all  ob- 
stacles and  dangers  faith  triumphed  and  gave 
him  a  victory  which  was  the  beginning  of  a 
long  line  of  triumphs  extending  through  his 
splendidly  fruitful  life. 

Cast  out  by  parents  and  other  relatives  and 
friends,  some  twenty  young  students  found,  at 
that  time,  a  home  in  a  hostel  erected  in  a 
Compound  where  was  also  situated  the  house 
in  which  Dr.  Duff  lived.  Of  this  hostel  Rev. 
Lai  Behari  Day  was  Superintendent.  Here  for 
full  seven  years,  young  Chatter jee  lived  the 
life  of  a  student  and  found  these  among  the 
happiest  years  of  his  life.  The  routine  of 
each  day  was  regulated  by  a  program  drawn 


School  and  College  Days  in  Calcutta     33 

up  in  Dr.  Duff's  own  hand.  The  Sunday- 
schedule  was  this:  From  7  to  8  A.  M.  a  Bible 
Class,  taught  by  Dr.  Duff.  11  a.  m.  Public 
worship  in  English.  4  to  5  p.  m.  a  class  in 
which  the  Shorter  Catechism  was  taught  and 
reports  of  missionary  work  in  several  parts 
of  the  world  read.  At  6  p.  m.  Public  worship 
in  Bengali  was  conducted  by  Dr.  Ewart.  In 
addition  to  this,  a  portion  of  each  week  day 
was  devoted  to  the  careful  training  of  the 
Christian  students.  But  even  more  than  this, 
stress  appears  to  have  been  laid,  by  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Staff,  upon  that  most  important 
feature  of  a  Christian  education,  namely, 
definite  training  in  character,  through  close 
personal  contact  between  pupil  and  teacher. 
The  constant  care  and  influence  of  such  men 
as  Dr.  Ewart,  Rev.  Lai  Behari  Day  and  Dr. 
Duff,  bore  great  fruit  in  the  lives  of  those  for 
whom  it  was  their  joy  to  labor.  Were  it  to 
be  asked  which  of  the  two,  personal  contact 
with  Christian  men,  or  the  direct  study  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  was  the  more  powerful 
force  in  the  development  of  the  spiritual  life 
of  their  pupils,  no  very  satisfactory  or  per- 
fectly discriminating  answer  could  probably  be 
given.  But  that  an  intellectual  conviction  of 
the  truth  and  reasonableness  of  the  Christian 
Scriptures  bore  an  important   share   in  the 


34       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

process  that  led  these  young  men  into  the  full 
light  of  faith,  cannot  be  doubted.  Statements 
as  to  the  part  played  by  doctrinal  teaching  in 
the  lives  of  the  converts  of  that  day,  are  not 
lacking  in  the  auto-biographical  notes  left  by 
many  of  them.  Such  notes  made  by  Kali 
Charan  are  worthy  of  being  reproduced  at 
some  length. 

"It  has  been  often  asked  why  I  renounced 
Hinduism  and  became  a  disciple  of  Christ.  My 
answer  is,  that  I  was  drawn  almost  unconsciously 
to  Christ  by  His  holy  and  blameless  life,  his 
devotion  to  the  will  of  God  and  His  works  of 
mercy  and  benevolence  toward  suffering  human- 
ity. The  excellence  of  His  precepts  as  given  in 
the  "Sermon  on  the  Mount"  and  His  love  for 
sinners  won  my  admiration  and  my  heart.  I 
admired  and  loved  Him.  The  incarnations  I 
had  been  taught  to  worship,  Rama,  Krishna, 
Mahadeo  and  Kali  were  all  incarnations  of 
power — they  were  heroes,  sinful  men  of  like 
passions  with  ourselves.  Christ  only  appeared  to 
me  as  holy  and  worthy  to  be  adored  as  God. 
But  the  doctrine  which  decided  me  to  embrace 
the  Christian  religion  and  make  a  public  pro- 
fession of  my  faith,  was  the  doctrine  of  the 
vicarious  death  and  sufferings  of  Christ.  I  felt 
myself  a  sinner  and  found  in  Christ  one  who 
had  died  for  my  sins — paid  the  penalty  due  to 
my  sins  Tor  by  grace  are  ye  saved  through 
faith,  and  that  not  of  yourselves,  it  is  the  gift 
of  God/  'Not  of  works  lest  any  man  should 
boast.'  This  was  the  burden  of  the  thought  of 
my  heart,  Christ  has  died,  and,  in  doing  so,  paid 


School  and  College  Days  in  Calcutta     35 

a  debt  which  man  could  never  pay.  This  con- 
viction which  has  grown  stronger  and  stronger 
with  my  growth  in  Christian  life  and  experience 
has  now  (1910)  become  a  part  of  my  life.  It  is 
the  differentiating  line  between  Christianity  and 
all  other  religions.  I  felt  it  so  when  I  became  a 
Christian,  and  feel  it  most  strongly  now.  'A 
God  all  mercy  is  a  God  unjust*  continues  to  be 
my  creed  to  this  day." 

The  school  and  college  career  of  our  young 
student  was  of  a  most  creditable  description. 
From  the  school  he  passed  into  the  college, 
two  years  after  leaving  school  at  Agarparah. 
His  ability  and  diligence,  during  those  years, 
were  marked  by  his  being  awarded  two  silver 
medals,  one  for  the  best  essay  on  female  edu- 
cation, and  the  other  for  being  head  of  the 
school.  Again  in  the  Entrance  examination, 
he  took  a  place  sufficiently  high  to  secure  for 
him  a  scholarship  of  Rs.  8  per  mensem  for 
the  first  two  years  of  his  College  course.  While 
in  College,  he  gained  still  further  distinctions 
and  certain  emoluments  connected  with  them. 
Among  these  may  be  mentioned,  a  silver  medal 
for  the  best  essay  on  "The  Best  Mode  of  Car- 
rying on  Female  Education,"  a  prize  for  the 
best  essay  on  "The  Social  Characteristics  of 
the  Mahrattas";  the  Hawkins  Theological 
Scholarship  of  Rs.  8  a  month  for  two  years, 
a  Mathematical  £rize  for  the  best  solutions  of 


36       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

one  hundred  problems  in  Conic  Sections;  and 
still  another  for  the  highest  proficiency  in 
English  History.  He  was  also  selected  as  a 
teacher  of  English  Literature  in  the  Entrance 
class  of  the  School,  a  position  which  he  held 
until  the  time  arrived  when  he  was  to  leave 
Calcutta. 

There  were  great  men  and  great  teachers  in 
the  Free  Church  College.  Dr.  Duff  taught 
such  subjects  as  Logic,  Metaphysics,  Moral 
Philosophy  and  Evidences  of  Christianity,  to- 
gether with  certain  of  the  Masters  of  English 
Literature.  Dr.  Mackay  was  a  great  astron- 
omer; Dr.  Smith  a  distinguished  mathemati- 
cian, and  Dr.  David  Ewart,  who  appears  to 
have  been  a  man  capable  of  giving  instruction 
in  a  variety  of  subjects,  taught  such  as  Eng- 
lish, Mathematics,  and  History.  He  has  been 
described  as  the  very  soul  of  the  institution. 
An  incessant  worker,  he  was  wont  to  arrive 
at  the  College  at  10  A.  m.  daily,  and  usually 
to  remain  there  busily  occupied  until  5  p.  m. 
One  who  knew  him,  as  a  man  and  teacher, 
without  any  thought  of  ascribing  any  less  of 
credit  to  the  great  Duff  than  was  his  due, 
indeed  he  spoke  of  him  as  the  outstanding 
teacher  and  organizer  of  the  institution,  in 
referring  to  Ewart  and  Duff,  said  that  the 
conception  of  the  College  was  Dr.  Duff's;  but 


School  and  College  Days  in  Calcutta     37 

the  carrying  out  of  that  conception  was  Dr. 
E  wart's  task. 

In  October,  i860,  this  great  teacher  was 
stricken  down  by  Cholera.  The  entire  student 
community  was  profoundly  stirred.  A  group 
of  Christian  young  men  spent  the  night  pre- 
ceding the  funeral,  by  the  body  of  the  honored 
dead.  It  was  to  them  a  most  solemn  occasion, 
one  on  which  more  than  one  of  them  in  the 
darkness  of  the  night,  in  the  presence  of  the 
dead,  after  earnest  heart  searching  and  prayer, 
solemnly  dedicated  themselves  to  the  service 
of  Christ.  This  was  the  first  formal  dedica- 
tion, on  the  part  of  Kali  Charan,  of  his  life 
to  missionary  service.  The  solemn  vow  then 
taken,  in  memory  of  the  beloved  preceptor  and 
pastor,  who  had  just  left  him,  was  never, 
throughout  the  long  life  that  followed,  for- 
gotten. Before  the  vow  was  made,  God's 
Spirit  seemed  to  impress  upon  his  mind  and 
heart  words  which  he  loved  to  quote  as  the 
basis  and  encouragement  for  all  effort  to  win 
men  to  Christ,  "Ye  are  not  your  own.  For 
ye  are  bought  with  a  price;  therefore  glorify 
God  in  your  body  and  in  your  spirit,  which 
are  God's." 

We  have  now  reached  a  point  wher%  in 
order  that  we  may  appreciate  the  causes  which 
led  to  his  leaving  Calcutta  and  setting  his  face 


38       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

toward  what  seemed  like  a  foreign  land,  refer- 
ence must  be  made  to  an  unpleasant  difference 
which  arose  between  three  ordained  Indian 
ministers  of  the  Free  Church  and  the  foreign 
members  of  the  Presbytery.  These  Indian 
brethren,  basing  their  claim  upon  the  doctrine 
of  the  parity  of  the  ministry,  asked  that  they 
be  given  equality  of  position  and  authority 
with  the  Foreign  Missionaries  in  the  Mission 
Council,  and  in  the  administration  of  all 
Mission  work.  They  claimed  that  this  parity 
not  only  existed  in  ecclesiastical  courts,  but 
also  in  the  work  of  the  Church  and  that  they 
ought  to  be  made  full  members  of  the  Mission, 
with  a  seat  and  a  vote  in  the  Mission  Council. 
In  this  controversy  all  the  Christian  students 
sympathized  keenly  with  the  Indian  ministers 
and  considered  the  Mission  as  unjust  in  its 
attitude  toward  them.  No  one  felt  this  more 
deeply  than  Kali  Charan  Chatter jee  and  he 
resolved  that,  if  an  opportunity  presented  itself 
for  him  to  leave  the  Mission,  and  work  in  con- 
nection with  some  other  Society,  he  would 
avail  himself  of  it.  Little  did  he  then  know 
that  the  same  anomalous  conditions  existed 
in  all  Missionary  societies.  However,  he  de- 
termined that,  if  in  «ther  societies,  the  privi- 
leges for  which  his  ordained  brethren  were 
asking,  should  be  refused  he  would  try  to  find 


School  and  College  Days  in  Calcutta     39 

a  place  for  himself  in  the  subordinate  position 
of  a  teacher. 

In  a  subsequent  chapter  of  this  biography  it 
is  hoped  that  there  may  be  found  space  for 
some  brief  reference  to  his  personal  attitude 
on  this  question  of  the  relation  of  the  Indian 
clergy  to  the  authoritative  administration  of 
the  affairs  of  the  Mission  or  Council.  Mean- 
while it  is  both  interesting  and  instructive  to 
note,  as  we  do,  that  important  movements  or 
currents  in  the  Church  of  Christ  in  India,  took 
their  rise  from  this  serious  divergence  in 
opinion  between  brethren  concerning  whose 
devotion  to  the  cause  of  Christ,  none  who 
knew  them,  could  entertain  the  slightest  doubt. 

It  was  in  the  month  of  October,  1861,  that 
a  letter  was  received  by  Mr.  Chatter jee  from 
the  Rev.  Golaknath,  of  Jalandhar,  in  the  Pan- 
jab,  offering  him  the  position  of  Headmaster 
of  the  Mission  School  there,  and  inviting  him 
to  become  a  co-worker  in  the  service  of  Christ, 
in  the  department  of  education.  The  young 
man  was  pleased  and  thankful  to  receive  such 
an  invitation,  and  after  much  prayerful  con- 
sideration, he  was  led  to  conclude  that  the  call 
was  from  God.  He  accepted  it  and,  with  little 
delay,  set  out  upon  his  long  journey  to  his 
new  field  beyond  the  Sutlej. 


IV 

EARLIER  YEARS  IN  THE  PANJAB 

"This  one  thing  I  do." 

A  RRIVING  in  Jalandhar  on  November 
/"%  2 1  st,  1 86 1,  the  young,  ardent  and 
well  equipped  teacher  entered  upon  his 
work  in  the  Mission  School.  It  was  then  that 
he  became  connected  with  the  Church  and 
Mission  in  which  the  remaining  years  of  his 
long  and  devoted  life  were  to  be  spent.  This 
separation  from  the  Church  in  which  he  had 
been  taught  and  in  which  he  had  made  public 
profession  of  his  faith  in  Christ,  he  did  not 
regard  lightly,  even  though  the  change  con- 
sisted in  nothing  more  than  a  transference  of 
relationship  from  one  administrative  organiza- 
tion to  another.  The  organization  with  which 
he  now  became  connected  was,  in  its  ecclesi- 
astical nature,  identical  with  that  in  which  he 
had  received  his  earlier  nurture.  A  member 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Calcutta,  his 
connection  was  with  the  Free  Church  of  Scot- 

40 


Earlier  Years  in  the  Panjab  41 

land ;  as  a  member  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  the  Panjab,  his  special  relationship  was  with 
the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.  S.  A.  Un- 
important as  this  change  in  relationship  might 
appear,  it  nevertheless  involved  a  severance  of 
old  ties  and  was  to  him  a  very  real  trial. 
Yet,  when  long  years  afterwards,  he  was  hon- 
ored by  his  brethren  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  India,  by  being  chosen  as  its  first 
Moderator,  the  old  pain  had  surely  all  disap- 
peared and  been  supplanted  by  a  very  lively 
satisfaction  and  thanksgiving  in  recognition 
of  the  fact  that,  through  the  labors  of  himself 
and  others,  barriers  that  had  no  right  to  find 
a  place  between  Christian  workers  of  substan- 
tially the  same  convictions,  had  begun  to  fall. 
From  the  very  outset,  his  work  at  Jalandhar 
seems  to  have  given  great  satisfaction;  the 
school  grew  in  numbers  and  in  efficiency,  and 
attention  was  drawn  to  him  from  many 
quarters.  During  the  years  1 861-1864  the 
School  was  developed  into  an  Anglo- Vernacu- 
lar School,  teaching  up  to  the  Entrance  Stand- 
ard. The  first  Entrance  examination  ever 
held  in  the  Panjab  took  place  in  1865.  Four 
young  men  of  the  Jalandhar  School  were  sent 
up  to  this  test,  of  whom  two  were  successful. 
It  is  of  interest  to  note  that,  of  these  two, 


42       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India  ] 

one  was  the  late  George  Solomon  Lewis,  who 
in  later  years,  was  distinguished  as  a  member 
of  the  Provincial  Civil  Service,  and,  through- 
out his  life,  as  a  man  of  God  and  a  power  for 
good  in  the  several  posts  of  influence  which 
he  held  in  various  parts  of  the  Province. 

It  was  as  has  been  seen,  through  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Golaknath,  the  first  Brahman  convert  of 
the  American  Presbyterian  Church  in  India, 
that  Mr.  Chatter jee  found  a  sphere  for  the 
beginning  of  his  service  in  the  Pan  jab.  Mr. 
Golaknath  was  for  many  years  in  charge  of 
the  work  of  the  Mission  at  Jalandhar  and  ex- 
ercised an  extraordinary  influence  throughout 
the  whole  region  of  country  lying  between  the 
Sutlej  and  the  Beas  rivers.  On  June  6th, 
1862,  Mr.  Chatter  jee  was  united  in  marriage 
to  Mary,  the  second  daughter  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Golaknath;  and  then  began  a  life  of  wonder- 
fully blessed  service  rendered  by  this  devoted 
pair  which  extended  over  a  period  of  fifty-four 
years. 

Their  family  consisted  of  one  son  and  four 
daughters.  Golaknath,  the  son,  after  a  bril- 
liant career  as  a  student  in  India  and  in  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  was  appointed  a 
Professor  of  Mathematics  in  the  Government 
College,  Lahore,  where  after  a  score  or  more 


Dr.  Chatterjee  in  1887,  while  on  a  visit  to  the  United 

states  at  the  invitation  of  the  Presbyterian 

Beard  of  Missions. 


Earlier  Years  in  the  Panjab  43 

years  of  admirable  service,  he  died  some  years 
ago.  During  a  portion  of  this  period,  he  was 
one  of  the  Directors  of  the  Forman  Christian 
College. 

Mona,  the  eldest  daughter,  became  the  wife 
of  Dr.  D.  N.  P.  Datta,  then  a  Civil  Surgeon 
— and  now  a  Medical  missionary.  She  too 
was  called  from  earth  some  years  ago.  In  her 
memory  a  beautiful  Church  building,  known 
as  the  "Mona  Memorial,"  was  erected  for  the 
use  of  the  congregation  at  Hoshyarpur. 

The  second  daughter,  Lena,  after  a  number 
of  years  of  active  service  as  a  missionary 
along  with  her  parents  in  Hoshyarpur,  was 
married  to  Kanwar  Raghbir  Singh,  son  of 
Raja  Sir  and  Rani  Lady  Harnam  Singh,  a 
member  of  the  Panjab  Service. 

The  third  daughter,  Nina,  is  the  wife  of  Dr. 
George  Nundy  of  the  Hyderabad  State  service. 

The  youngest  member  of  this  exceedingly 
interesting  group  of  children,  Dora,  was  partly 
educated  in  the  United  States,  where  she  grad- 
uated in  medicine.  For  a  number  of  years 
thereafter  she  was  a  physician  in  charge  of 
the  Denny  Hospital  for  Women  at  Hoshy- 
arpur, and  rendered  most  admirable  service  as 
a  colleague  in  the  missionary  work  of  the 
Station,  of  her  parents  and  sister.    Later  she 


44       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

became  the  wife  of  Rai  Sahib  Manghat  Rai, 
B.A.,  a  member  of  the  provincial  Civil  Service 
in  the  Northwest  Frontier  Province. 

Shortly  after  his  marriage,  Mr.  Chatter jee 
was  offered  by  the  Head  of  the  Government 
Educational  department,  the  post  of  Head- 
master in  such  schools  as  those  at  Gujranwala 
and  Hoshyarpur.  These  were  tempting  offers. 
The  work  proposed  was  lucrative,  with  pros- 
pect of  promotion,  and,  after  a  period  of  years, 
a  pension.  Both  offers  were,  however,  firmly 
declined  upon  the  ground  that  he  had  resolved 
to  serve  God  as  a  Christian  teacher  or  preacher, 
as  opportunity  might  come  to  him. 

His  salary  as  a  Mission  School  teacher  was 
small.  An  incident  connected  with  one  of  the 
offers  of  Government  Service  just  referred  to 
deserves  more  than  casual  mention. 

When  the  offer  was  made,  it  was  fully  dis- 
cussed, and  finally  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Chatterjee 
decided  to  accept  it.  They  reasoned  in  this 
way,  that  in  a  new  post  of  service,  they  would 
continue  to  let  their  light  shine  and  would  do 
everything  they  could  to  promote  their  Re- 
deemer's Kingdom.  They  accepted  the  post 
and  made  arrangements  to  leave.  The  last  day 
arrived  and  the  gari  stood  before  the  door. 
Trunks  and  boxes  had  been  placed  on  top  of 


Earlier  Years  in  the  Panjab  45 

the  vehicle  and  they  were  ready  to  leave  their 
old  home  and  their  work  in  the  Mission  for 
good.  At  the  last  moment,  Mrs.  Chatter jee 
said,  "I  am  not  yet  satisfied.  Let  us  go  back 
into  the  house  and  pray  about  it  again."  They 
went  back  and  knelt  down  in  their  dismantled 
home.  They  prayed  unitedly  for  guidance, 
and,  when  they  arose  from  their  knees,  they 
both  said  with  one  accord,  "We  will  not  go. 
God  has  placed  us  here.  God  has  planted  us  in 
this  place  and  in  this  work  that  we  should 
bring  forth  fruit  for  Him.  He  will  provide. 
We  will  trust  and  not  be  afraid."  So  the 
boxes  were  unloaded  and  the  gari  sent  away, 
the  old  home  put  in  order  again  and  the  old 
work  went  on.  The  verse  which  sums  up  the 
experience  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Chatterjee  at  that 
time  and  throughout  the  years  is  this,  "Ex- 
cept a  grain  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and 
die  it  remaineth  alone ;  but  if  it  die,  it  beareth 
much  fruit."  How  wonderfully  the  confidence 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Chatterjee  in  God  was  justi- 
fied. At  the  moment  of  self-dedication,  they 
died  to  all  human  ambition  and  made  the  great 
venture  of  faith.  This  is  the  secret  of  their 
wonderful  fruitfulness  in  the  Master's  work. 
In  the  year  1849,  the  year  of  the  annexation 
of  the  Panjab  to  the  British  Empire,  the  Rev. 


46       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

John  Newton  and  the  Rev.  C.  W.  Forman,  of 
the  Presbyterian  Mission,  opened  work  in 
Lahore,  the  capital  city  of  the  Province.  A 
school  was  at  once  founded,  which  speedily 
became  a  source  of  tremendous  influence 
throughout  the  entire  region.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  overestimate  the  part  borne  by  that 
institution  in  shaping  the  lives  and  characters 
of  thousands  of  youths,  who,  especially  in  the 
early  days  of  British  occupancy,  when,  at  the 
outset,  the  large  majority  of  English-educated 
employees  of  Government  had  to  be  found 
from  amongst  the  students  of  the  great  Mission 
School. 

In  December,  1865,  it  was  resolved  to  open 
College  classes  in  connection  with  the  School, 
and  this  was  done  in  the  following  year.  The 
Rev.  C.  W.  Forman  was  at  the  head  of  both 
the  School  and  College  departments  and  Mr. 
Chatter jee  was  offered  and  accepted  the  post 
of  Junior  Professor  of  mathematics.  It  might 
appear  that  his  future  career  had  thus  been 
determined  by  circumstances,  and  that  his  life 
was  to  be  devoted  to  the  work  of  teaching. 
But  previous  to  this  call  to  the  College,  there 
had  come  another  call,  to  which  he  felt  he 
dared  not  turn  a  deaf  ear.  He  was  wont  to 
describe  it  as  "God's  call  to  me  to  enter  the 


Earlier  Years  in  the  Pan  jab  47 

Gospel  Ministry,"  and  to  declare  that,  when  it 
came,  old  objections  entirely  disappeared,  and 
that  he  resolved  never  again  to  think,  in  so  far 
as  it  concerned  himself,  of  the  matter  of  in- 
equality of  position  between  Indian  and  Ameri- 
can missionaries,  in  the  administration  of  Mis- 
sion work.  His  desire  to  be  set  apart  for  the 
Ministry  was  communicated  to  the  Presbytery, 
and  in  November,  1864,  he  was  accepted  as  a 
candidate.  By  direction  of  this  body,  he  pur- 
sued his  studies  in  Theology  and  Church  His- 
tory, under  the  guidance  of  the  Rev.  John  New- 
ton and  the  Rev  Golaknath,  and,  in  New  Testa- 
ment Greek,  under  that  of  Rev.  W.  J.  P. 
Morrison.  After  the  satisfactory  completion 
of  all  his  trial  examinations,  he  was  licensed  to 
preach  the  Gospel  in  December,  1867,  and  on 
December  24th  of  the  following  year,  was 
solemnly  ordained  to  the  ministry  of  the 
Gospel  by  the  Presbytery  of  Ludhiana,  at  its 
meeting  at  Ludhiana. 

From  January,  1866,  until  March,  1868,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Chatter jee  devoted  their  energies 
to  work  in  Lahore,  he  to  teaching  in  the  School 
and  College  classes  and  to  Bazaar  Preaching, 
and  she  to  visiting  and  teaching  the  ladies  in 
some  of  the  Bengali  families  in  the  City. 

His  teaching  duties  included  the  teaching  of 


48        A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

Mathematics  to  the  First  and  Second  Year 
classes  and  also  to  the  Entrance  class;  Logic 
and  Philosophy  to  the  Third  and  Fourth  Year 
classes,  and  also  Scripture  to  one  of  the 
classes.  For  a  time  he  acted  as  Headmaster 
of  the  School.  Sixteen  out  of  the  twenty-four 
hours  of  each  day  did  not  seem  to  him  too 
much  to  devote  to  active  work  and  prepara- 
tion for  it.  Those  years  were  to  him  years 
of  great  joy  in  the  service  which  he  was  en- 
abled to  perform,  and  the  period  was  a  time, 
too,  during  which  he  felt  that  he  gained  much 
by  way  of  preparation  for  the  years  that  were 
to  follow.  He  esteemed  his  association  with 
Mr.  Newton  and  Mr.  Forman  an  exceedingly 
great  privilege.  He  gained  their  fullest  con- 
fidence; they  loved  and  trusted  him,  and  he 
loved  and  honored  them.  He  aimed  to  carry 
out  their  wishes  and  they,  in  turn,  soon  came  to 
esteem  him  as,  in  all  respects,  worthy,  and 
capable  to  take  the  fullest  share,  with  them,  in 
all  the  affairs  of  the  Mission  Station.  The 
mutual  friendship,  love  and  confidence  which 
had  its  beginning  then,  continued,  in  a  remark- 
able degree,  to  exist  among  these  men  of  God 
as  long  as  their  lives  lasted.  This  fellowship 
of  kindred  spirits  was  undoubtedly  a  powerful 
influence  in  shaping  the  life  of  the  youngest 


Earlier  Years  in  the  Panjab  49 

of  the  three,  as  he  shortly  entered  upon  a  new 
sphere,  where  new  and  untried  burdens  had 
to  be  borne,  and  new  problems  to  be  faced  and 
dealt  with. 

At  the  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Ludhiana 
(now  Panjab)  Mission,  held  in  1866  a  letter 
from  Mr.  H.  E.  Perkins,  Deputy  Commis- 
sioner of  Hoshyarpur,  was  read,  in  which  he 
suggested  that  the  Mission  establish  work  at 
that  place.  In  response  to  this  request,  it  was 
resolved  that  Hoshyarpur  be  taken  up  as  a 
sub-station  of  Lahore,  subject  to  the  approval 
of  the  Board  in  New  York,  and  that  Rev. 
Guru  Das  Moitra  be  appointed  to  begin  work 
in  that  place.  The  approval  of  the  Board  hav- 
ing been  received,  Mr.  Moitra  proceeded  to 
the  new  station ;  but  within  a  few  months  af tei 
his  arrival,  he  fell  seriously  ill,  and  was  com- 
pelled to  seek  a  change  of  scene  in  order  to 
recruit  his  health.  Domestic  affliction  of  a 
most  trying  character  followed  upon  his  illness, 
and  so  at  the  end  of  the  year  1867,  he  was 
recalled  to  his  former  position,  at  the  Rang 
Mahal  School,  Lahore. 

At  this  juncture,  it  became  clear  to  the  Mis- 
sion, that  for  the  great  new  field  at  Hoshy- 
arpur, God  had  provided,  in  the  persons  of 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Chatter jee,  those  who  could  be 


50       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

sent  into  it,  with  the  utmost  confidence,  and 
with  great  expectation  of  an  abundant  harvest. 
We  know  how  amply  the  years  that  followed 
justified  that  decision. 

The  invitation  came  to  them  early  in  1868. 
They  felt  it  to  be  a  summons  not  from  the 
Mission  only,  but  from  God  himself.  They 
arrived  on  March  4th,  1868,  and  they  came, 
to  use  his  own  words,  "fully  consecrating  them- 
selves, their  bodies  and  souls,  to  the  Saviour 
of  mankind  being  determined  'to  know  noth- 
ing but  Christ  and  Him  crucified/  and  im- 
ploring the  blessing  of  God  upon  the  work." 


BEGINNINGS  IN  HOSHYARPUR 

Blessed  is  he  who  has  found  his  work, 
Let  him  ask  no  other  blessedness. 

— Carlyle. 

THE  territory  for  the  evangelization  of 
which  the  Ludhiana  Mission  became,  at 
the  time,  in  a  sense  responsible,  com- 
prises an  area  of  2232  square  miles. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  populous  districts  in 
the  Province,  having  more  than  900,000  in- 
habitants, these  being  distributed  throughout 
11  towns  and  21 17  villages. 

Regarding  the  natural  features  of  this  dis- 
trict, its  rivers,  the  Sutlej  and  the  Beas,  which 
bound  it  on  the  north  and  south;  its  great 
Chohs,  or  sandy  waterways,  which  lead  into 
the  rivers  and  intersect  great  portions  of  the 
plains;  its  Chhambs,  or  stretches  of  marshy 
land ;  its  products  and  its  climate,  much  might 
be  said.  It  may  be  indeed  said  that,  in  order 
to  appreciate  very  adequately  the  nature  of  the 
task  that  awaited  the  Missionary  in  1868  one 

51 


52       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

should  be,  to  some  degree,  at  least,  familiar 
with  these  things,  as  well  as  with  the  char- 
acter of  the  population,  its  social  condition, 
and  its  religious  convictions  and  practices. 
But  obviously  this  is  not  the  place  in  which 
to  attempt  any  detailed  description  of  them. 
References  to  certain  facts  or  numbers  may 
indeed  be  found  necessary  from  time  to  time; 
but  such  will  be  made  only  by  way  of  illus- 
trating the  nature  and  progress  of  the  task 
undertaken  and  carried  forward  by  the  mis- 
sionaries and  will  be  given  in  as  concise  form 
as  may  be  possible. 

With  respect  to  religious  affiliations,  the 
population  consists  of  Hindus,  Mohammedans, 
Sikhs,  Christians,  Jains  and  a  few  others. 

Amongst  those  commonly  included  amongst 
the  Hindus,  Mohammedans  and  Sikhs  in 
census  reports  are  the  "Depressed  classes" 
known  as  the  Chuhras,  of  whom  there  were 
19,205  in  1 90 1,  and  the  Chamars  numbering 
121,003.  A  fact  that  is  not  without  interest 
is  that  at  the  same  time,  there  were  enumerated 
in  the  dictrict  no  less  than  19,075  mendicant 
faqirs,  the  greater  number  of  them  being  of 
the  Mohammedan  faith. 

As  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Chatter jee  entered  upon 
the  tremendous  task  of  bringing  the  knowledge 


Beginnings  in  Hoshyarpur  53 

of  the  Gospel  of  the  Son  of  God  to  so  hetero- 
geneous a  population,  spread  over  so  vast  a 
territory,  and  realized  the  smallness  of  their 
force  and  the  inadequacy  of  their  financial 
equipment,  it  is  not  surprising  that  they  should 
have  paused  to  carefully  deliberate,  along  with 
their  advisers  in  their  own  Mission  and  with 
Mr.  Perkins,  upon  whose  invitation  the  sta- 
tion had  been  opened,  as  to  the  agencies  to  be 
employed.  The  conclusions  reached  by  them 
and  the  considerations  which  led  to  them,  were 
expressed  in  a  very  convincing  form,  in  a 
paper  written  but  a  few  years  ago.  It  is  of 
interest  to  remember,  in  this  connection,  that 
the  account  is  written  in  the  light  of  an  ex- 
perience of  more  than  two  score  years,  and 
with  an  obvious  assurance  that,  in  adopting 
the  method  described,  they  had  been  clearly 
guided  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 

"When  I  came  here,  I  was  an  enthusiastic 
admirer  of  Missionary  education  and  considered 
it  the  most  efficient  means  of  extending  the  King- 
dom of  Christ  and  building  up  His  Church  in 
the  land,  and  no  wonder  that  I  did  so.  I  was 
brought  to  know  and  love  the  Saviour  through 
Missionary  education  and  spent  the  first  six  years 
of  my  service,  in  the  Ludhiana  Mission,  in  edu- 
cational work.  All  my  antecedents  were  educa- 
tional. Yet,  after  consulting  Mr.  Perkins,  the 
founder    of    this    Mission,    and    carefully    and 


54       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

prayerfully  considering  all  the  circumstances  of 
our  new  sphere  of  labor,  and  especially  the  very 
limited  force  at  our  command,  we  concluded  to 
devote  the  greatest  part  of  our  time  to  the  simple 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  and  to  the  distribution 
of  Scriptures  and  tracts.  The  only  educational 
work  we  decided  to  take  up  was  female  educa- 
tion. This  was  entirely  neglected  in  the  district. 
There  was  not  a  single  girl's  school  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  district.  Looking 
back  on  the  decision,  after  forty-one  years,  we 
feel  that  we  were  guided  to  it  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  whose  blessings  accompanied  all  our  work. 
With  this  decision,  the  work  was  organized  as 
follows : 

i.  Daily  open  air  preaching  from  the  veranda 
of  the  Reading  Room. 

2.  Evangelistic  services  three  times  a  week  in 
the  City  Chapel. 

3.  Daily  conferences  with  visitors  on  religious 
subjects  in  the  Reading  Room. 

4.  Bible  class  in  the  Mission  House  during  the 
summer  months. 

5.  Preaching  in  religious  Melas  in  the  city 
and  its  neighborhood. 

6.  Preaching  in  the  villages  by  means  of  winter 
itineration. 

7.  Two  day  schools  for  Hindu  and  Moham- 
medan girls. 

"These  agencies  have  been  most  persistently, 
prayerfully,  and  with  faith  in  the  word  and 
promises  of  God  made  use  of  for  the  last  forty- 
one  years.  They  are  not  opposed  to,  or  discon- 
nected with  each  other  but  are  mutually  helpful 
and  dependent,  and  form  the  parts  of  a  con- 
nected whole.    By  means  of  open  air  preaching, 


Beginnings  in  Hoshyarpur  55 

from  the  veranda  of  the  Reading  Room,  we 
simply  proclaim  the  Gospel  Message  to  passers- 
by  in  the  street.  The  audience  is  fluctuating  and 
often  inattentive  and  noisy.  The  few,  who  are 
impressed,  come  to  the  Reading  Room  and  have 
conferences  with  the  preacher  who  removes  their 
difficulties  and  objections,  and  counsels  them  as 
to  the  right  way  of  enquiry.  The  evangelistic 
services  in  the  chapel  are  conducted  with  music 
and  singing  and  exhortation  from  the  word  of 
God.  There  is  no  controversy  held  and  the  audi- 
ence is  most  orderly  and  attentive,  and  under  the 
control  of  the  preacher.  The  Bible  Class  is  meant 
for  more  serious  enquirers,  and  has  been  the 
means  of  leading  many  to  Christ.  The  preach- 
ing in  melas  has  the  character  of  open  air 
preaching  from  the  veranda  of  the  Reading 
Room.  In  winter  itinerations,  in  the  villages, 
there  is  always  open  air  preaching  and  confer- 
ences with  enquirers  at  resting  places. 

"We  have  tried  to  combine  the  above  agencies 
with  works  of  benevolence  and  personal  influ- 
ence. With  this  object,  we  started  a  poor-house 
in  the  City  in  1870,  and  supported  it  with  sub- 
scriptions from  the  Christian  residents  of  the 
station  and  grants  from  Municipal  funds.  This 
institution  was  under  my  immediate  control  up 
to  1891,  and  has  been  the  means  of  feeding  and 
clothing  thousands  of  the  indigent  population  in 
the  district.  Several  thousands  have  also  been 
supplied  with  blankets  to  make  them  warm  in 
the  cold  season.  Quinine  has  also  been  dis- 
tributed to  the  sick  through  us,  and  we  have  been 
able  to  do  all  this  through  the  generosity  of 
Christian  people.  In  1888  the  Girl's  Orphanage 
and  Boarding  School  was  opened  to  afford  shelter 


56       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

to  the  homeless  and  destitute  orphans  of  all 
Castes  and  Creeds,  to  educate  them  and  fit  them 
for  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  life.  In 
1902  was  opened  the  Denny  Hospital  for  the 
relief  of  pain  and  suffering  amongst  women  and 
children.  It  was  with  this  object  also,  i.  e.,  of 
doing  good,  that  I  accepted  a  seat  in  the  Munici- 
pal Committee  in  1874,  and  afterwards,  when 
local  self-government  was  introduced,  the 
Presidentship  of  the  same.  This  brought  me 
into  closer  contact  with  the  city  people  and  gave 
me  an  opportunity  of  controlling  their  schools, 
dispensaries,  hospitals  and  other  benevolent  in- 
stitutions, and  of  generally  looking  after  the 
comforts  of  the  poor.  It  was  only  when  my 
proper  work  extended  to  the  villages,  and  I 
could  not  do  justice  to  both,  that  I  resigned  my 
connection  with  the  Municipality.  It  has  been 
our  humble  endeavor  to  bring  our  personal  in- 
fluence to  bear  upon  all  with  whom  we  have  to 
come  in  contact  and  of  allowing  no  opportunity 
of  doing  good  to  pass  away  unimproved.  Our 
Saviour's  commission  to  His  Apostles  was, 
'Preach,  saying,  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at 
hand.  Heal  the  sick,  cleanse  the  lepers,  raise 
the  dead,  cast  out  devils.  Freely  ye  have  re- 
ceived freely  give/  We  have  tried  to  work  on 
these  lines. 

"It  may  be  asked,  'What  is  the  result  of  our 
work?" 

"My  reply  is  this.  The  first  six  years  we 
spent  in  sowing  seed — in  preaching  the  gospel 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land. 
During  this  period  there  were  many  enquirers 
and  attentive  listeners,  but  only  one  convert. 
Hakim  Singh,  a  Hindu  Jat  from  Hukumatpur, 


Beginnings  in  Hoshyarpur  57 

declared  his  faith  in  Christ  and  publicly  received 
baptism.  At  the  end  of  1873,  a  general  awaken- 
ing took  place  among  our  hearers,  a  manifesta- 
tion of  God's  free  grace  and  the  working  of  His 
Spirit,  and  this  awakening  lasted  for  nearly  ten 
years.  It  began  at  Ghorawaha,  and  soon  extended 
to  Bulowal,  and  from  there  to  Gardhiwala, 
Chack,  Hoshyarpur  and  Bhowra.  In  the  course 
of  it,  hundreds  came  forward  and  confessed 
Christ  to  be  the  only  Saviour  of  men.  Twenty- 
nine  families  of  respectable  Hindus  and  Moham- 
medans received  baptism  and  joined  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  Many  of  them  are  still  alive, 
adorning  different  spheres  of  Christian  life  and 
usefulness.  The  man  who  took  a  lead  in  this 
movement  is  still  living  and  is  the  prosperous 
head  of  his  village  and  an  elder  in  the  Church. 
Six  devoted  themselves  to  the  Gospel  Ministry. 
One  of  these  died  a  few  years  ago  after  a  short 
career  of  distinguished  service.  Four  are  still 
working  as  evangelists  in  this  district  and  the 
sixth  is  an  influential  pastor  of  one  of  the 
Churches  of  the  district  of  Jalandhar.  Three  are 
preaching  the  Gospel  as  Licentiates  and  two  are 
engaged  in  the  humbler  work  of  Catechists. 

"Christianity  was  in  great  favor  with  men  in 
those  days,  and  a  special  unction  of  the  Spirit 
was  given  to  the  preacher,  so  that,  wherever  he 
went,  he  spoke  with  power  and  the  Word  of  God 
prospered  in  his  hands.  Non-Christian  people 
were  sometimes  afraid  to  come  near  him  for  fear 
of  being  drawn  away  from  their  faith  to  Christ." 

In  this  brief  statement,  we  have  only  the 
barest  outline  of  the  most  conspicuous  features 
of  the  first  decade  of  the  history  of  Hoshy- 


58       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

arpur  Station.  The  movement  which  had  its 
beginning  at  Ghorawaha,  and  which  resulted 
in  a  large  ingathering  to  the  Church,  begin- 
ning from  1873,  and  lasting  almost  a  decade, 
was  regarded,  at  the  time,  as  unique  in  the 
Pan  jab,  and  may  indeed  be  so  esteemed.  In 
later  years  great  communal  movements  have 
been  seen  but  these  have  been  from  amongst 
the  people  of  the  lower  classes.  As  will  ap- 
pear, in  the  case  of  some  of  these  movements, 
there  has  not  always  been  an  entire  absence  of 
possible  worldly  inducement  to  become  identi- 
fied with  the  religion  of  Christ;  but  in  this 
movement,  of  which  we  now  speak,  there  was 
not  only  an  absence  of  all  such  inducements, 
but  the  inevitable  endurance  of  severe  persecu- 
tion by  everyone  who  dared  to  forsake  his 
former  faith  and  publicly  identify  himself 
with  the  Christians.  Usually,  in  such  condi- 
tions, individuals  have  entered  the  Church  in 
small  numbers  and  at  long  intervals.  In  the 
case  of  the  Hoshyarpur  ingathering,  men  and 
women  of  good  social  position  came  in  con- 
siderable numbers,  at  the  cost  of  property  and 
good  name  among  their  fellows,  and  deliber- 
ately took  up  their  cross  and  followed  Him. 
Enough  has  been  said  above  concerning  their 
life  and  character  to  make  it  abundantly  evi- 


Beginnings  in  Hoshyarpur  59 

dent  that  the  work  was  a  work  of  God's 
Spirit.  The  present  writer  came  into  close 
personal  touch  with  a  number  of  these  con- 
verts during  the  period  when  they  were  in 
course  of  preparation  for  the  Gospel  Ministry 
and  can  testify  to  the  things  which  some  of 
them  gladly  suffered  for  Christ's  sake  and  to 
the  beauty  of  some  of  the  lives  which,  thank 
God,  are  still  spared  to  serve  in  His  Church. 
Throughout  the  first  fifteen  years  follow- 
ing the  inception  of  the  work  in  City  and  dis- 
trict, Mr.  Chatter jee  seems  to  have  been  an 
indefatigable  itinerant;  not  that  he  was  ever 
other  than  active  and  diligent  in  reaching  out 
to  the  regions  beyond  the  established  stations 
of  his  district,  but  it  was  during  the  earlier 
years  that  he  was  best  able  to  be,  for  long 
periods,  absent  from  the  central  station.  As 
time  passed,  responsibilities  connected  with  the 
supervision  of  the  entire  field  and  with  the 
activities  of  the  main  station,  together  with 
increasingly  heavy  burdens,  growing  out  of  the 
position  which  he  had  come  to  occupy  in  the 
Church  at  large,  made  it  difficult  or  even  im- 
possible for  him  to  devote  so  large  a  portion 
of  his  days  to  the  visitation  of  remote  villages, 
as  he  had  been  able  to  do  in  the  beginning. 
And  yet  we  doubt  if  another  Missionary  could 


60       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

be  mentioned  who  knew  his  field,  its  condition, 
the  quality  of  his  assistants,  the  fruitfulness 
or  barrenness  of  particular  localities,  more 
thoroughly  than  he. 

In  the  days  of  his  greatest  vigor,  when  his 
body  was  able  to  keep  pace  with  the  increasing 
longing  to  make  known  the  riches  of  the 
Gospel  message,  to  the  tens  of  thousands,  who 
without  him,  would  never,  humanly  speaking, 
have  an  opportunity  of  hearing  it,  we  think 
of  him  as  incessantly  active  in  carrying  the 
truth  to  remote  religious  Melas,  at  such  shrines 
as  Chintpurni,  Garhdiwala,  Dharamkot,  and 
Rajni  at  Jhaggi  and  Anandpur.  Here  (An- 
andpur)  Guru  Govind  Singh  was  born  and 
brought  up,  and  here,  for  the  first  time,  he 
administered  the  ceremony  of  Pahal  (Sikh 
Baptism)  to  his  disciples  in  the  temple  of 
Kesgarh.  There  are  several  splendidly  built 
temples  here  and  at  Kirtpur,  nearby.  A  great 
Mela  is  held  here  annually,  at  the  time  of  the 
Holi  festival.  It  was  in  one  of  these  Melas 
that  the  Rev.  Levi  Janvier,  of  the  Presbyterian 
Mission  was  killed  by  a  Sikh  fanatic  in  1864.' 
(It  will  be  of  interest  to  some  to  know  that 
Mr.  Janvier  was  the  father  of  Rev.  C.  A.  R. 
Janvier,  D.D.,  President  of  the  Ewing  Chris- 
tian College  at  Allahabad.) 


Beginnings  in  Hoshyarpur  61 

By  the  end  of  what  may  be  loosely  indi- 
cated as  the  first  fifteen  years  of  his  ministry 
in  Hoshyarpur,  much  had  been  accomplished. 
He  had  studied  that  great  field  of  ninety  miles 
in  length  and  thirty  miles  in  breadth.  To  a 
remarkable  degree,  he  had  come  to  know  the 
people  of  all  classes  and  they  to  know  him. 
From  amongst  them,  small  groups  of  be- 
lievers had  been  gathered;  misunderstandings 
as  to  the  motives  of  the  missionary  had  been 
removed ;  a  corps  of  Christian  helpers  had  been 
organized;  and  arrangements  made  for  the 
regular  preaching  of  the  Word  and  the  shep- 
erding  of  the  people  in  the  chief  towns  of  the 
District.  As  yet  there  had  been  little,  if 
any,  manifestation  of  that  movement,  which, 
in  more  recent  years  has  been  associated  with 
great  ingatherings  to  the  Church,  from  the 
"Depressed  classes."  Concerning  this  move- 
ment, the  manner  in  which  it  was  met  and 
utilized  and  its  results,  we  shall  speak  ini 
another  chapter. 


VI 

WORK  AMONG  THE  LOWLY 

"He  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to 
minister." 

THE  turning  of  a  multitude  to  the  Lord 
from  amongst  the  "Depressed  classes', 
in  a  particular  district,  cannot  be  better 
described  than  in  the  language  of  the  Mis- 
sionary who  was  himself  in  the  position  of 
leader  and  guide  of  all  the  activities  of  the 
Church  in  that  region,  at  a  time  when  great 
numbers  began  to  seek  admission  to  it.  For- 
tunately it  is  possible  to  insert  here  a  remark- 
ably clear  and  thoughtful  statement  from  the 
pen  of  the  Missionary,  written  after  many 
years  of  experience  had  qualified  him  to  esti- 
mate the  opportunity  of  the  time  and  to  appre- 
ciate the  importance  of  this  particular  form 
of  work,  in  its  relation  to  the  establishing  of 
the  kingdom  in  India.  Let  it  be  remembered 
here  that  this  is  the  judgment  of  one  who  was 
himself  a  Brahman,  one  who,  as  a  Hindu, 
could  have  nothing  but  contempt  and  loathing 

62 


Work  Among  the  Lowly  63 

for  the  people  of  whom  he  now  speaks.    He 
says: 

"I  shall  now  say  a  few  words  about  the  work 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  amongst  the  low  class,  known 
as  Chuhras: 

They  belong  to  the  impure  class  of  sweepers 
and  scavengers  of  towns  and  cities.  In  the  vil- 
lages, they  are  employed  as  farm-laborers  and 
in  making  and  burning  bricks.  They  are  illiter- 
ate and  sunk  in  degradation  and  vice.  They  have 
no  fixed  religion.  Those  of  them  who  live  in 
Hindu  villages,  follow  the  religious  customs  and 
manners  of  the  Hindus  and  give  offerings  to 
Hindu  gods  and  goddesses.  The  Chuhras  of 
Mohammedan  villages  follow  Mohammedan 
customs.  They  have  no  organized  priesthood  nor 
sacred  books.  They  worship  a  saint  called  Bala 
Shah.  Hindus  and  Mohammedans  look  down 
upon  them,  and  avoid  physical  contact  with  them. 
The  number  of  these  people  in  this  district,  ac- 
cording to  the  last  census,  was  19,205. 

The  Mass  movement  amongst  these  people  to- 
wards Christianity  was  not  sudden.  The  first 
man  was  baptized  in  1888.  He  was  a  good  man 
and  opened  the  door  for  our  work  among  his 
people  and  we  put  our  greatest  force  on  it.  At 
first  the  baptisms  were  by  units,  then  by  tens 
and  hundreds,  and  at  last,  by  thousands,  and  even 
whole  villages  came  forward  and  asked  to  be 
enrolled  in  the  Christian  Church.  Our  experi- 
ence in  connection  with  this  work  is  as  follows: 

1.  We  believe  it  to  have  been  caused  by  a 
special  providence  of  God's  grace,  and  the  work- 
ing of  His  Spirit.  It  has  not  been  peculiar  among 
the  Chuhras  of  this  district,  but  has  extended  to 


64       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

the  whole  province  and  the  whole  of  North 
India.  Similar  movements  have  taken  place  in 
South  India  also.  God  has  His  times  of  special 
visitations  of  grace  for  special  peoples,  and  I 
believe  the  Mass  Movement  amongst  the  Chuhras 
of  this  district  to  be  one  of  them.  We  believe 
it  also  to  have  been  caused  by  the  steady  and 
faithful  work  of  God's  people  amongst  them. 
Amongst  the  minor  causes  may  be  mentioned  the 
freedom  from  religion  and  social  restraint  en- 
joyed by  these  people,  and  the  ease  with  which 
they  could  accept  new  truths.  Besides  they  had 
nothing  to  lose,  but  everything  to  gain  by  be- 
coming Christians.  Many  of  those,  who  are 
influenced  by  this  movement,  become  Christians 
from  the  love  of  truth,  and  to  satisfy  the  spiritual 
instincts  and  yearnings  of  their  souls.  Some 
come  to  simply  raise  themselves  in  social  status, 
and  to  enjoy  the  advantages  of  education  offered 
to  their  children  by  the  Mission,  and  others  with- 
out thinking  of  any  special  objects,  join  their 
brethren  without  any  special  aim.  Thus  they 
are  influenced  by  various  motives. 

2.  The  best  mode  of  dealing  with  them  is  to 
receive  them  all  and  carry  them  through  a  course 
of  instruction,  and  inform  them  of  the  objects 
of  Christianity  and,  when  they  are  sufficiently 
improved,  and  able  to  make  an  intelligent  and 
creditable  profession  of  their  new  faith,  and  show 
signs  of  real  penitence,  by  giving  up  idolatrous 
and  other  sinful  practices,  they  should  be  bap- 
tized. There  should  not  be  "Mass-baptisms"  in 
"Mass-movements."  Every  case  of  application 
should  be  decided  on  its  own  merits.  This  seems 
to  me  to  be  the  wisest  and  safest  course. 

3.  I  believe  the  movement  in  our  district  to 


Work  Among  the  Lowly  65 

be  genuine,  to  be  from  God  and  a  sincere  desire, 
on  the  part  of  these  people,  to  embrace  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  To  make  it  permanent  and  pro- 
ductive of  spiritual  fruitfulness,  the  work  should 
be  followed  up  by  daily  pastoral  care  and  teach- 
ing and  by  bringing  our  own  personal  influence 
to  bear  on  them,  to  bring  them  up  in  the  life  and 
faith  of  Christ.  Efforts  should  be  also  made  to 
educate  their  children,  and  to  teach  them  some 
clean  and  more  respectable  industry  or  trade. 

One  racial  characteristic  of  these  people  is  their 
dullness  of  understanding.  What  you  teach  them 
today  they  forget  tomorrow.  Heredity  and  ig- 
norance from  time  immemorial  have  made  them 
dull.  Great  patience  and  perseverance  are  neces- 
sary to  overcome  this  difficulty.  They  should  be 
taught  line  upon  line;  precept  upon  precept,  and 
that  by  the  word  of  mouth. 

A  second  characteristic  is  their  want  of  moral 
apprehension.  In  many  cases  the  conscience  has 
to  be  created  anew,  and  in  all  enlightened. 
Heredity  and  ignorance  of  all  right  and  wrong 
for  generations  has  deadened  their  conscience 
and  destroyed  all,  or  nearly  all,  moral  sensibility. 
Patient  and  prayerful  working  is  necessary  to 
restore  life  and  light  to  the  newcomers. 

4.  Admission  of  Chuhras  into  the  Christian 
Church  lowered  its  social  and  moral  status  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Hindus  for  a  time.  But  it  soon 
became  evident  to  them  that  our  object  was  not 
to  become  Chuhras,  but  to  raise  them  from  their 
present  degraded  and  depressed  condition." 

At  the  time  of  Dr.  Chatterjee's  retirement 
from  the  active  supervision  of  the  District 
work  of  Hoshyarpur,  the  Christian  Community 


66       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

numbered  3106  persons,  scattered  throughout 
118  villages.  These  had  been  organized  into 
five  churches,  with  the  following  numerical 
strength : 

I.  The  Hoshyarpur  Church. 

1.  Number  of  baptized  members. . .  .566 

2.  Number  of  Communicants 98 

3.  Number  of  Catechumens 150 

II.  The  Ghorawaha  Church. 

1.  Number  of  baptized  members. . .  .336 

2.  Number  of  Communicants 115 

3.  Number  of  Catechumens 280 

III.  The  Tanda  Church. 

1.  Number  of  baptized  members. . .  .730 

2.  Number  of  Communicants 474 

3.  Number  of  Catechumens 35 

IV.  The  Dosuah  Church. 

1.  Number  of  baptized  members. . .  .816 

2.  Number  of  Communicants 730 

3.  Number  of  Catechumens 441 

V.  The  Mukerian  Church. 

1.  Number  of  baptized  members. . .  .924 

2.  Number  of  Communicants 728 

3.  Number  of  Catechumens 622 

Total. 

3106  Baptized  Christians. 
1939  Communicants. 
1528  Catechumens. 


Work  Among  the  Lowly  67 

No  account  of  the  agencies  and  influences 
set  in  operation  for  the  evangelization  of  that 
great  district  would  be,  in  any  way,  complete, 
which  failed  to  make  mention  of  the  efforts 
made  for  the  enlightenment  and  evangelization 
of  women  and  girls.  Again  we  turn  to  the 
words  of  the  Reports,  presented  to  the  Mis- 
sion and  Board  from  year  to  year,  and  to  a 
summary  penned  but  five  years  ago: 

"Our  educational  work  has  been  very  limited. 
We  began  with  two  day  schools — one  for  Hindu 
and  another  for  Mohammedan  girls.  They  were 
opened  in  1869.  The  latter  was  more  flourishing 
than  the  former,  but  soon  collapsed  on  account 
of  the  opposition  of  the  Mohammedans  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Scriptures.  The  former  con- 
tinued for  thirty-nine  years.  It  was  taught  and 
superintended  at  first,  by  Mrs.  Chatterjee  and 
afterwards  by  her  two  daughters  in  succession, 
Miss  Mona  Chatterjee,  and  Miss  Lena  Chat- 
terjee, and  only  closed  on  the  marriage  of  the 
latter,  in  December,  1907.  It  was  a  primary 
school,  teaching  reading,  writing,  arithmetic  and 
embroidery,  with  the  addition  of  Scripture  les- 
sons. The  number  of  girls  attending  it  was 
forty  to  fifty  every  year.  Though  elementary  in 
character,  this  school  was  the  center  of  life  and 
light  to  many  of  the  homes  in  the  City  of 
Hoshyarpur  and  the  only  means  at  our  command 
of  reaching  the  higher  class  Hindu  women  with 
Christian  teaching  and  influence. 

"The  Girls'  Orphanage  and  Boarding  School 
has  been  the  other  educational  institution  of  this 


68       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

station.  It  was  opened  in  July,  1888,  and  the 
object  of  opening  it  was  thus  explained  in  the 
annual  report  of  that  year: 

"  'The  object  of  this  institution  is  not  to  rival 
the  Girls'  Boarding  School  in  Dehra,  or  the 
Christian  Girls'  School  in  Lahore,  or  the  Alex- 
ander School  in  Amritsar,  but  to  act  as  a  sup- 
plement to  them.  These  are  meant  for  the 
daughters  of  Indian  Christian  gentlemen,  and 
give  education  suited  to  them.  Our  school  is 
intended  to  give  home  and  Christian  education  to 
orphan  girls,  and  to  the  children  of  the  poorer 
classes  of  Christians,  suited  to  their  state  and 
condition  of  life.' 

"Keeping  this  end  in  view,  we  have  tried  to 
bring  up  the  children  committed  to  our  care  for 
the  last  twenty-one  years  with  simple  and  inex- 
pensive habits,  and  with  careful  instruction  in 
the  Bible  and  in  secular  knowledge,  up  to  the 
upper  Primary  Standard.  Industries  suited  to 
girls,  such  as  housekeeping,  cooking,  plain  and 
fancy  needle-work  have  also  been  taught.  On 
an  average,  five  girls  have  been  passed  out  of 
this  school  every  year,  after  finishing  the  pre- 
scribed course.  Some  of  these  have  been  married 
to  Evangelists,  Licentiates  and  Catechists  of  our 
Mission,  and  are  taking  part  with  credit  in  their 
husbands'  work  of  spreading  the  Gospel  of 
Christ.  Others  are  married  to  men  in  secular 
occupations  and  are  proving  worthy  help-meets 
to  their  husbands.  In  our  estimation,  the  school 
has  been  a  boon,  not  only  to  orphan  and  destitute 
girls,  but  also  to  the  poorer  Native  Christians  of 
our  community. 

"The  school  is  the  result  of  Mrs.  Chatterjee's 
visit  to  America  in  1887,  and  may  be  considered 


Work  Among  the  Lowly  69 

'a  memorial'  of  it.  The  Churches  in  that  country 
asked  her  to  mention  some  specific  object  in 
which  they  could  take  interest  and  give  her  help 
to  carry  it  on.  She  proposed  this  joint  object 
of  a  Girls'  Orphanage  and  boarding  school  for 
the  daughters  of  the  poorer  native  Christians. 
The  idea  struck  them  as  worthy  of  sympathy  and 
support,  and  they  generously  supplied  the  sum 
of  five  thousand  dollars,  as  the  first  instalment 
of  their  gift.  On  Mrs.  Chatterjee's  return  from 
America,  a  suitable  site,  in  a  healthy  and  pleasant 
part  of  the  station,  with  a  grant  from  the  District 
Board  and  contributions  from  friends  in  India, 
was  selected.  The  necessary  buildings  were  put 
up  with  the  contributions  from  America,  and  the 
work  was  started  in  the  midst  of  much  encourage- 
ment and  hope. 

"In  September,  1900,  forty  orphans  were  ad- 
mitted into  the  orphanage.  Six  of  them  were  in 
the  lowest  condition  of  health  when  they  arrived, 
and,  in  spite  of  professional  medical  skill,  care 
and  nursing,  soon  died.  There  were  thirty- four 
left  to  be  cared  for.  These  were  simply  skin 
and  bone  when  they  first  arrived.  Some  of  them 
were  covered  with  sores  and  vermin.  All  had 
an  insatiable  craving  for  food,  which  they  could 
not  digest.  By  incessant  care,  watching,  nursing 
and  medical  treatment,  they  acquired  health, 
gained  flesh,  and  began  to  look  like  other  healthy 
children. 

"Their  moral  condition  was  worse  than  their 
physical  degradation.  Most  of  them  came  from 
a  class  of  people  called  Bheels,  in  the  Central 
Provinces,  who  are  thieves  by  profession.  This 
characteristic  of  the  race  was  most  prominent  in 
these  children.     They  were  thievish,  lying  and 


70       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

deceitful  in  the  extreme  and  showed  little  or  no 
sense  of  moral  responsibility. 

"Special  mention  is  due  here  to  the  share  borne 
by  Mrs.  Chatterjee  in  the  work  of  these  schools ; 
first  in  those  for  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  girls, 
in  which  she  was  succeeded  by  her  daughters, 
and  second  in  the  Girls'  Orphanage  and  Board- 
ing School.  The  latter  was  under  her  entire 
control  from  July,  1888,  until  early  in  1916.  To 
these  schools  and  to  the  care  of  the  women  of 
the  Christian  families,  this  noble  Christian  lady 
devoted  her  life.  One  is  tempted  here  to  enlarge 
upon  her  share  in  all  the  activities  of  all  those 
busy  years.  But  she  is,  thank  God,  still  with 
us,  and  we  trust  that  she  may  live  to  bless  others 
in  the  future  as  she  has  in  the  past.  When  that 
work  shall  have  been  completed,  there  will  doubt- 
less arise  to  tell  of  what  her  splendid  unassum- 
ing life  of  service  has  meant  to  thousands. 
Meanwhile,  we  speak  of  her  life  and  work  only 
as  inseparable  from  that  of  her  beloved  husband. 

"The  Denny  Hospital  for  Women  and  Chil- 
dren was  established  in  1902,  largely  through  the 
liberality  of  Miss  Anna  Denny  of  New  York. 
Dr.  Dora  Chatterjee,  on  the  completion  of  her 
course  of  Medical  Training,  in  the  U.  S.  A., 
was  chosen  as  the  head  of  this  new  institution, 
and  continued  in  charge  until  her  marriage,  some 
eight  years  ago.  Her  work  was  greatly  appre- 
ciated by  the  people  and  liberal  grants  were  given 
to  it  by  the  Government." 

To  this  outline  of  the  more  conspicuous  and 
important  of  the  opportunities  of  service, 
found  and  utilized,  during  his  years  of  greatest 


Work  Among  the  Lowly  71 

Activity,  must  be  added  mention  of  his  min- 
istration to  the  English  Church  of  the  Station. 
By  invitation  of  the  English  residents,  and 
with  the  sanction  of  the  Bishop  of  the  Diocese, 
in  whom  the  control  of  the  Church  building 
was  vested,  he  undertook  the  conduct  of  the 
Church  service  on  every  Sunday  between  the 
quarterly  visits  of  the  Chaplain  of  Jalandhar 
and  continued  to  be  responsible  for  this  duty 
for  more  than  forty  years.  We  believe  that 
this  relation  between  the  Indian  minister  and 
a  British  community  is  unique  in  the  history 
of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  India.  The  minister 
was  not  only  of  a  race  other  than  the  members 
of  his  congregation,  but  belonged  to  a  branch 
of  the  Church  other  than  that  for  whose  use 
the  building  had  been  consecrated.  The  fruit 
of  this  special  service  was  doubtless  of  im- 
mense value  in  its  effect  upon  individual  lives, 
and  besides  this,  in  binding  the  interest  of  the 
European  people,  most  of  them  officials,  to 
him  and  his  work. 


VII 

HIS  PLACE  AS  A  LEADER  IN  THE 
CHURCH 

Nothing  is  so  misleading  as  to  estimate  the  re~ 
suit  of  Indian  Missions  by  the  number  of  actual 
conversions. — Prof.  Satthianadhan. 

HAVING  now  sketched,  in  outline,  the 
general  course  of  his  life,  and  indi- 
cated its  main  currents,  and  the 
beneficence  of  its  influence  within  definite 
geographical  limits,  we  come  to  speak  of  his 
usefulness  in  that  sphere  lying  outside  his  im- 
mediate field  of  labor,  wherein  he  came  into 
touch  with  the  Christian  Church  at  large. 

Within  a  very  brief  period  after  his  settle- 
ment at  Hoshyarpur,  many  unsought  oppor- 
tunities of  coming  into  contact  with  the  work 
of  his  own  and  other  Missions,  operating  in 
the  Pan  jab,  began  to  offer  themselves  to  him. 
In  1875  he  was  chosen  by  the  Synod  of  India 
to  a  Lectureship  in  the  Theological  School  at 
Allahabad,  and  occupied,  for  such  time  as  he 

72 


His  Place  as  Leader  in  the  Church       73 

could  be  spared,  that  important  position,  until, 
indeed,  the  institution  was  closed,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  the  supply  of  students  was  largely 
exhausted,  their  services  being  immediately 
needed  in  the  work  of  the  several  fields  from 
which  they  had  been  sent. 

In  the  Presbytery  and  Synod,  he  was  a 
marked  figure.  His  clearness  of  judgment, 
frankness  of  statement,  and  readiness  to  de- 
vote time  and  labor  to  the  solution  of  diffi- 
culties, won  for  him  such  esteem  in  the 
Ecclesiastical  Courts  of  his  Church,  that  he 
was  soon  recognized  as  a  leader.  Many  of 
us  remember  his  long  years  of  invaluable 
service  as  Stated  Clerk  of  the  Lahore  Presby- 
tery, during  which,  the  promptness  and  ac- 
curacy with  which  he  conducted  all  business 
coming  before  that  body  were  most  conspicu- 
ous. Similarly  of  the  Synod  of  India,  in  the 
years  preceding  the  formation  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  in  India,  with  its  Synods  and 
General  Assembly,  there  were  few,  if  any,  indi- 
viduals whose  counsel  was  so  eagerly  sought 
or  whose  names  were  so  inevitably  to  be  found 
upon  the  more  important  committees. 

One  who  now  occupies  a  very  exalted  posi- 
tion in  another  branch  of  the  Church,  in 
speaking  of  a  visit  made  by  him  to  a  meeting 


74       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

of  the  Synod  of  the  Pan  jab,  refers  to  a  lengthy 
and  somewhat  tedious  discussion  as  having 
been  brought  to  a  close  by  a  few  brief  and  final 
words  from  Dr.  Chatter jee.  This  was  a  matter 
of  frequent  occurrence. 

When,  in  1884,  the  Theological  Seminary 
was  organized  at  Saharanpur,  he  was  one  of 
the  most  active  participants  in  the  formation 
of  plans  for  its  efficient  work,  and  sent  from 
his  district  a  large  contingent  of  promising 
students. 

Throughout  all  the  years  of  the  history  of 
the  institution,  until  his  death,  he  served  as  a 
Director,  and  on  several  occasions,  upon  the 
invitation  of  the  Faculty,  delivered  courses  of 
lectures  to  the  young  men  there  undergoing 
courses  of  study  in  preparation  for  the  Gospel 
ministry. 

The  Mission  College  at  Lahore,  in  which 
Mr.  Chatter  jee,  as  we  have  seen,  served  for  a 
time  as  a  member  of  the  staff,  was  compelled 
to  discontinue  its  classes  in  1869.  In  1886, 
by  action  of  the  Mission,  the  College  was  re- 
opened with  Rev.  Dr.  Forman  as  President 
and  Rev.  H.  C.  Velte,  M.A.,  as  Vice-Presi- 
dent. This  institution  was  placed  under  the 
immediate  control  of  a  Board  of  Directors. 
Of  this  Board,  Dr.  Chatter  jee  was  chosen  first 


His,  Place  as  Leader  in  the  Church       75 


President,  and  continued  uninterruptedly  in 
that  office  for  almost  thirty  years,  or  until 
October,  191 5,  when,  owing  to  physical  in- 
firmity, he  felt  impelled  to  relinquish  the  active 
duties  of  this  office  and  was  made  President 
Emeritus.  An  enthusiastic  believer  in  Educa- 
tion as  a  missionary  agency,  he  threw  him- 
self ardently  into  the  task  of  helping  to  make 
the  College  a  power  in  the  Province.  His 
wise  counsel  and  hearty  co-operation  were, 
throughout  all  the  years,  from  the  days  of 
small  beginnings,  to  later  times,  when  the  col- 
lege grew  to  a  size  and  influence  not  antici- 
pated by  the  founders,  an  asset  of  tremendous 
value.  In  recognition  of  his  services,  in  this 
relation,  a  large  addition  to  the  buildings  of 
the  College  made  in  19 10  was  named  the 
Chatter jee  Science  Block.  In  fulfilling  the 
duties  of  his  office,  as  President  of  the  Board, 
his  painstaking  thoroughness  was  no  less  con- 
spicuous than  elsewhere.  At  the  end  of  each 
year,  he  prepared  and  presented,  through  the 
Mission,  to  the  Board  in  New  York,  a  full  and 
careful  report  of  the  working  of  the  College 
Board  and  of  the  institution  itself. 

He  early  became  intensely  interested  in  all 
proposals  looking  toward  the  organic  union  of 
the  several  Presbyterian  Churches  in  India,  and 


76       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

one  of  the  sore  disappointments  of  his  life  was 
that  he  was  not  permitted  to  witness  the  union 
of  all;  though  he  never  despaired  of  the 
eventual  realization  of  his  great  desire. 

Years  before  the  formation  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  in  India,  which  involved,  in  his 
case  and  in  the  case  of  his  Indian  Brethren, 
and  of  the  foreign  members  of  the  old  Synod 
of  India,  separation  from  the  Church  in  the 
United  States,  certain  efforts  looking  toward 
the  ultimate  union  of  all  Protestant  Christians 
in  the  Pan  jab,  had  been  initiated.  With  these 
most  laudable  efforts,  the  name  of  Rev. 
Robert  Clark,  M.A.,  of  the  Church  Missionary 
Society,  was  conspicuously  associated,  and  the 
movement  was  looked  upon  with  favor  by 
many  others,  including  some  members  of  the 
Panjab  Mission.  Dr.  Chatter jee  was  deeply 
convinced  of  the  importance  of  the  Christian 
Church  presenting  an  undivided  front  to  the 
non-Christian  world. 

On  one  occasion,  when  delivering  an  ad- 
dress in  America,  at  the  ordination  of  the  son 
of  a  beloved  colleague,  who  was  about  to  sail 
for  India  as  a  Missionary,  he  burst  forth  into 
such  words  as  these:  "I  charge  you,  therefore, 
dearly  beloved  brother,  not  to  allow  the  wild- 
fire of  sectarian  partizanship  to  be  carried  along 


His  Place  as  Leader  in  the  Church       77 

with  you.    Leave  it  in  this  land,  or  if  one  small 
spark  of  it  should  remain  undetected,  pray 
that  it  may  be  engulfed  and  extinguished  in 
the  bosom  of  the  mighty  ocean  which  you 
must  cross  before  you  reach  the  Indian  shore." 
He  was  eager  that  in  his  own  life  there 
should  be  nothing  to  separate  him  from  the 
fullest  sympathy  and  co-operation  with  Chris- 
tians of  all  branches  of  the  Church.    He  there- 
fore  entered   heartily   into   certain   tentative 
plans  for  co-operation,  which  it  was  hoped, 
by  some,  might  lead  to  a  closer  federation,  or 
even  organic  union,  in  coming  years.     These 
came  largely  to  naught,  through  the  unwill- 
ingness of  some  to  concede  enough  to  make 
even  useful   federation  possible.     He,   along 
with  many  who  agreed  with  him,  would  have 
rejoiced  to  find  himself  a  member  of  a  Church, 
whose  Constitution  would  have  included  im- 
portant elements  of  polity  and  practice  absent 
from  that  of  his  own  Church,  provided  that 
the  new  Church   might  have   retained  those 
features  which  he  regarded  as  essential  to  the 
well  being  of  the  Body  of  Christ  as  a  whole. 
Many  of  his  warmest  friends  throughout  life 
were  from  among  the  clergy  and  the  laity  of 
the  Church  of  England  and  many  of  them 
contributed  largely  to  the  support  of  the  work 


78       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

at  Hoshyarpur.  That  he  continued  a  Pres- 
byterian was  possibly  a  grief  to  some  of  them, 
but  of  this  we  are  sure,  that  their  love  for 
him  and  their  respect  for  his  character  could 
hardly,  under  any  circumstances,  have  been 
greater  than  it  was.  All  honor  to  them  and 
to  him,  who  were  thus  able  to  overlook  de- 
nominational distinctions  which  they  deplored 
but  could  not  remove,  and  to  unite  in  effort 
for  the  upbuilding  of  the  Church. 

In  response  to  an  invitation  from  the  Bishop 
of  Lahore,  he  with  two  other  representatives 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  addressed  the 
Anglican  Diocesan  Conference  at  Lahore  in 
1909,  upon  the  topic  of  Church  Union.  In 
an  address  characterized  by  great  breadth  of 
charity  and  deep  earnestness,  he  plead  that 
an  effort  be  made  to  close  up  the  ranks  of 
the  Christian  forces,  in  so  far  as  Church  gov- 
ernment is  concerned,  and  suggested  that  a 
modified  episcopate  might  be  adopted  as  a 
basis  of  union.  The  chief  feature  of  the  plan 
indicated  was  that  men  should  be  elected  to 
the  office  of  Bishop  for  a  term  of  years,  by 
clergy  and  laity,  according  to  wisely  formed 
and  clearly  defined  rules.  He  contended  that, 
if  this  concession  were  made  to  the  non- 
Episcopal  bodies,  all  remaining  points  of  dif- 


Mrs.   Chatterjee  in   1887 

Picture   taken   in    America 


HisTlace  as  Leader  in  the  Church       79 

ference  should  be  yielded  by  them  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  great  end  sought  to  be  attained. 
The  discussion,  on  that  occasion,  was  not 
wholly  we  may  believe,  unproductive  of  good, 
and  yet  neither  speakers  nor  hearers  were  sur- 
prised that  the  particular  suggestion  failed  to 
meet  with  any  general  acceptance.  Reference 
to  the  address  delivered  by  him  at  that  time 
is,  however,  we  think,  justified  because  of  the 
glimpse  it  affords  us  of  his  eagerness  to  see 
the  people  of  the  Lord  become  indeed  one, 
and  his  readiness  to  join  with  his  own  Church, 
were  the  way  to  be  made  clear,  in  assuming  a 
very  large  share  in  such  concessions  as  must 
inevitably  precede  union.  In  a  peculiar  sense, 
he  belonged  to  all  the  Churches.  Ample  testi- 
mony to  this  our  readers  will  find  both  in  the 
facts  of  his  life  and  in  the  appreciations  which 
will  appear  at  a  later  point  in  this  little 
volume. 

While  touching  upon  this  matter  of  his 
loyalty  to  his  own  Church,  and  that  breadth 
of  sympathy  which  made  it  possible  for  him 
to  work  in  harmony  with  people  of  various 
communions,  it  is  fitting  that  we  record  some 
of  the  appreciations  of  the  man  and  of  his 
place  in  the  Christian  activities  of  his  time 
furnished  by  those  who   recognized  in  this 


80       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

great  Presbyterian  a  great  Christian  evangel- 
ist who  belonged  to  the  whole  Church. 

Here  is  a  formal  resolution  passed  by  the 
Foreign  Committee  of  that  splendid  society, 
which  has  stood  in  the  very  forefront  of 
world-Evangelization  during  the  whole  of  the 
period  of  what  may  be  called  modern  Mis- 
sions. 

Church  Missionary  Society, 
Salisbury  Square,  London,  E.  C. 

July  18,  1916. 
The  Committee  have  received  with  regret  the 
news  of  the  death  on  May  31  of  Dr.  K.  C. 
Chatter jee,  late  Moderator  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  India.  They  desire  to  express  to  that 
body  and  to  Dr.  Chatter jee's  family  their  cordial 
sympathy  in  the  loss  sustained  by  the  death  of 
this  beloved  and  eminent  leader  of  the  Indian 
Church  and  their  admiration  of  and  thankful- 
ness to  God  for  the  work  done  and  the  witness 
borne  by  him.  They  recall  with  gratitude  the 
help  given  by  Dr.  Chatter  jee  to  many  of  their 
Missionaries  in  the  work  of  Evangelization,  his 
able  co-operation  in  the  work  of  the  vernacular 
literature,  and  his  ministrations  in  English  under 
four  Bishops  in  the  Station  Church  at  Hoshy- 
arpur;  and  they  pray  that  his  life  and  example 
may  prove  to  be  the  earnest  of  increasing  leader- 
ship among  Indian  Christians. 

(Signed)  E.  F.  E.  Wigram. 
G.  T.  Manley. 
Secretaries  of  the  C.  M.  S. 


His  Place  as  Leader  in  the  Church       81 

A  peculiarly  discriminating  estimate  of  the 
man  has  been  furnished  by  one  of  the  signa- 
tories to  the  above  official  document,  who,  for 
many  years,  a  missionary  in  the  Panjab,  had 
the  fullest  opportunity  of  knowing  the  value 
to  India  and  the  Indian  Church,  of  him  of 
whom  he  writes.  In  a  personal  letter  to  the 
writer,  the  Rev.  E.  F.  E.  Wigram,  M.A.,  Sec- 
retary of  the  Church  Missionary  Society, 
says: 

One  thing  that  strikes  me  as  I  think  over  my 
own  reminiscences  of  Dr.  Chatterjee,  is  the 
strong  firm  lines  of  the  impression  produced  by 
comparatively  few  strokes  of  contact  with  him. 
We  did  not  come  into  very  frequent  intercourse, 
but  none  the  less  the  impress  left  was  a  very 
clear  and  definite  one.  Outwardly  there  was 
that  dignified  and  gracious  presence,  and  it  was 
the  true  expression  of  the  man  within.  To  be 
with  him  was  to  be  braced  and  uplifted  at  once. 
His  personality,  without  having  a  tinge  of 
aggressive  assertion  in  it,  challenged  you  to  be 
at  your  best,  and  yet  more,  to  regard  the  best 
as  the  only  possible.  It  was  standing  rebuke  to 
anything  petty  or  slipshod  or  unworthy  in  the 
servant  of  Christ. 

Then  again  he  always  gave  the  impression  of 
a  quiet  reserve  of  strength  sufficient  for  every 
emergency.  He  had  his  firm,  strong  grasp  on  the 
real  essentials  of  the  matter  in  hand;  and  he 
went  forward  as  one  confident  as  to  the  ultimate 
issue  of  the  enterprise  which  engaged  him,  and 


82       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

certain  that  he  possessed  the  secret  of  the  re- 
sources which  would  bring  him  victoriously 
through  it.  I  have  a  particular  recollection  of 
the  thrill  with  which  I  listened  to  probably  the 
only  sermon  of  his  I  have  ever  heard,  preached 
to  one  of  the  earliest  Pan  jab  Student  Confer- 
ences, held  at  Clarkabad,  somewhere  about  1899 ; 
and  I  am  quite  sure  that  it  touched  many  of 
the  hearts  that  heard  it. 

Lastly  I  cannot  close  without  referring  to  Dr. 
Chatterjee's  great  contribution,  alike  conscious 
and  unconscious,  to  the  supreme  cause  of  Unity. 
His  unique  relations  to  the  first  four  Bishops 
of  Lahore,  while  himself  a  member  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church,  are  one  signal  illustration  of 
this,  and  in  point  of  fact  we  surely  all  claim  him 
for  our  own,  since  he  was  manifestly  Christ's. 
I  have  particularly  happy  recollections  of  a  small 
Committee  on  Reunion,  some  years  ago  in  which 
he  took  a  leading  and  very  encouraging  part. 
He  has  gone  now  beyond  the  reach  of  dividing 
walls,  and  if  anything  can  add  to  the  unclouded 
vision  of  his  Lord,  I  feel  that  it  will  be  to  wit- 
ness his  beloved  India  shake  herself  free  from 
the  trammels  of  our  Western  Divisions,  and 
enter  unitedly  into  the  full  heritage  of  the 
Catholic  faith  of  Christ. 

Another  distinguished  representative  of  the 
same  society,  who,  for  many  years  occupied 
a  position  of  great  and  almost  unique  promi- 
nence in  the  Panjab,  the  Rev.  H.  U.  Weit- 
brecht,  D.D.,  has  this  to  say  of  his  association 
with  Dr.  Chatterjee  and  of  the  impression 
made  by  him  upon  men: 


His  Place  as  Leader  in  the  Church       83 

My  first  acquaintance  with  Dr.  Chatterjee 
began  in  November,  1877,  when  the  Rev.  R. 
Bateman  took  me,  then  a  budding  missionary 
still  in  my  first  year,  for  an  itineration,  in  com- 
pany with  Dr.  Chatterjee,  in  the  Hoshyarpur 
district.  It  was  an  invaluable  experience  to  me 
in  those  early  days  and  I  was  specially  impressed 
with  the  work  of  the  village  of  Ghorawaha, 
with  its  group  of  Christian  families  who  had 
formerly  been  Mohammedan  Rajputs.  The  im- 
pression then  specially  made  upon  me  was,  on 
the  one  hand,  of  the  respect  and  reverence  with 
which  Dr.  Chatterjee  was  regarded  by  his  Chris- 
tian fellow-workers,  and  his  affectionate  fatherly 
attitude  towards  them,  and  as  regards  outsiders, 
of  his  power  of  kindly  and  gentle  persuasion 
together  with  shrewd  reasoning  which  scarcely 
ever  failed  in  quieting  even  bitter  and  abusive 
opponents.  Later  on  I  came  in  contact  with 
Dr.  Chatterjee  chiefly  in  connection  with  the 
work  of  vernacular  literature.  He  was  an  un- 
failing mainstay,  especially  of  colportage  work 
in  connection  with  the  Punjab  Religious  Book 
Society  for  many  years.  His  annual  reports 
always  contained  something  of  interest  or  sug- 
gestiveness  and  his  counsel  was  never  asked  in 
vain.  About  the  year  1902  we  had  a  Conference 
for  our  colporteurs  at  St.  John's  Divinity  School, 
in  which  he  took  part.  Being  in  the  hot  weather 
we  had  to  sleep  side  by  side  in  the  same  room, 
for  the  sake  of  the  punkah,  and  the  impression 
then  received  of  his  devotional  life  remains  with 
me.  His  friendship  whenever  we  met  or  corre- 
sponded was  a  source  of  pleasure  and  of  help 
both  in  human  and  divine  life.  Dr.  Chatter jee's 
saintly  yet  strenuous  life  realized  in  a  remark- 


84        A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

able  way  the  union  of  Christian  grace  and  high- 
born Indian  temperament.  It  will  leave  an  in- 
delible impression  on  generations  to  come. 

No  apology  is  surely  needed  for  giving  place 
here  to  still  another  estimate  of  the  man,  seen 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a  countryman  of 
his  own,  Principal  S.  K.  Rudra,  M.A.,  of  the 
St.  Stephen's  College,  Delhi,  an  institution  in 
connection  with  the  Cambridge  Mission  of  the 
Church  of  England. 

They,  the  Christians  who  came  from  the  Scot- 
tish College  in  Calcutta,  made  the  name  of 
"Christian"  a  name  respected  in  the  Panjab. 
Dr.  Kali  Charan  Chatter jee  was  pre-eminently 
one  of  these. 

During  my  thirty  years  in  the  Panjab,  I  saw 
Dr.  Chatter  jee  not  more  than  six  times.  He 
seemed  to  live  away  from  bustle  and  noise.  I 
can  vividly  recall  my  first  meeting.  It  was  a 
pilgrimage.  I  came  from  Delhi  to  Jalandhar  and 
rode  nearly  thirty  miles  in  the  only  sort  of  rude 
conveyance  I  could  get — the  Ekka.  It  was 
nearly  ten  at  night  when  I  reached  the  house; 
and  the  first  thing  he  asked  me  was  if  I  was 
very  tired  by  the  ride.  Everything  was  so  new 
to  me  in  the  Panjab  that  I  had  not  the  slightest 
feeling  of  tiredness.  I  was  struck  by  his  ques- 
tion. But  I  know  now  as  I  know  more  of 
Ekkas  also,  that  it  was  a  fine  feeling  of  sym- 
pathy which  was  the  characteristic  of  a  man, 
that  prompted  the  question.     The  next  morning 


His  Place  as  Leader  in  the  Church       85 

I  saw  him  in  his  surroundings.  An  exceedingly- 
plain  house  with  plain  furniture,  plain  food, 
severe  almost  in  plainness,  and  himself,  a  tall, 
straight,  lightly  built  man,  but  strong,  with  a 
fine  impressive  face,  a  noble  brow,  mobile  lips, 
gentle  but  steady  gaze,  and  a  long  flowing  beard, 
clad  in  the  good  old  Bengali  style  I  knew,  which 
gladdened  my  heart.  He  seemed  thirty  years 
behind  the  times.  The  quiet  and  simplicity  of 
the  man  struck  me  greatly:  there  was  no  loud- 
ness of  any  sort.  His  voice  and  utterance,  soft 
and  thin,  in  measured  and  distinct  words, 
counterparts  of  his  physical  aspect  gave  the  key 
to  his  character.  In  the  ordering  of  his  home, 
it  was  just  the  same.  No  ostentation,  no  noise, 
no  bustle,  but  it  was  all  a  deeply  subdued, 
ordered  life  directed  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  vo- 
cation of  being  a  Missionary  to  the  Panjab 
peasants  of  Hoshyarpur.  I  was  not  disappointed 
in  what  I  saw.  I  had  never  any  occasion  to 
revise  this  first  impression  of  this  servant  of 
God.  That  was  only  strengthened  as  my  ac- 
quaintance increased. 

I  must  not  attempt  to  chronicle  my  impressions 
of  other  meetings  seriatim.  It  is  sufficient  to 
say  that  my  first  impressions  were  deepened  and 
strengthened  at  every  subsequent  interview.  I 
had  seen  him  when  all  was  well  with  him  as  the 
world  goes,  and  I  again  saw  him  when  he  was 
laid  low  by  domestic  sorrows  and  bereavements. 
But  he  was  ever  the  same  in  mind  and  demeanor, 
in  faith  and  speech,  only  now  riper  in  years, 
feebler  in  body,  but  not  bent — straight  and  erect 
as  ever,  quiet  and  gentle,  thinking  of  others ;  and 
by  his  life  and  conduct,  bearing  witness  to  the 
last  that  Christ  alone  is  the  Saviour  of  men. 


86       A  Prince  of  the  Church  iir  India 

He  was  present  as  a  member  in  each  of  the 
Decennial  Missionary  Conferences,  held  in 
Calcutta  in  1882,  Bombay  in  1892,  and 
Madras  in  1902.  Both  in  the  Bombay  and 
Madras  Conferences,  he  was  a  conspicuous 
figure.  Before  the  former  he  read,  by  invita- 
tion of  the  Committee  of  Arrangements,  a 
paper  dealing  with  the  subject  of  the  Social 
and  Legal  Rights  of  Indian  Christians,  and 
spoke  upon  the  subject  of  the  Indian  Church — 
the  Training  and  Position  of  its  Ministry. 
Remembering  the  circumstances  which  led  to 
his  leaving  Calcutta,  in  his  youth,  and  also 
the  resolution  at  which  he  arrived,  when  he 
subsequently  decided  to  devote  his  life  to  work 
in  connection  with  a  Missionary  Society,  we 
make  no  apology  for  reproducing  here  a  few 
points  from  that  address.  Whatever  variety 
of  views  may  be  held  by  good  men  and  true, 
as  to  what  principles  should  finally  prevail  as 
to  the  relation  of  our  Indian  brethren  to  the 
administration  of  funds,  furnished  by  the 
Church  in  the  West,  few  will  be  found  to  claim 
that  the  question  has,  as  yet,  been  satisfactorily 
settled.  It  will  be  well  worth  while  for  those 
who  are  seeking  after  a  better  way  than  yet 
found,  to  heed  the  words  of  one  so  unques- 
tionably unselfish,  and  earnestly  desirous  of 


His  Place  as  Leader  in  the  Church       87 

the  welfare   of  the   Kingdom,   as  was  our 
brother. 

"The  pay  question  ought  not  to  be  raised  in 
a  man's  mind  when  he  is  entering  into  the  min- 
istry. He  should  not  bargain  for  the  Lord's 
service.  The  Missionary  Societies  may  be  relied 
upon  to  make  provision  for  his  necessary  wants 
and  comforts.  If  they  do  not,  the  Lord  will. 
This  has  been  my  experience  for  thirty-two 
years.  The  question  of  position  is  a  most  vexa- 
tious question.  Dr.  Hooper  avoids  the  discussion 
of  it  in  his  very  thoughtful  paper,  and  I  do  not 
wonder  that  he  does  so.  I  have  seen  it  dis- 
cussed for  thirty-five  years  without  producing 
any  satisfactory  result.  It  has  no  reference  to 
the  ecclesiastical  positions  of  native  ministers. 
This,  as  far  as  I  know,  is  the  same  as  that  of 
Foreign  Missionaries  in  all  the  Churches.  It 
refers  to  their  secular  position  in  the  manage- 
ment of  mission  affairs,  and  the  administration 
of  mission  funds.  All  foreign  missionaries, 
whether  engaged  in  this  country  or  sent  out  of 
Europe  and  America,  enjoy  this  prerogative. 
All  native  ministers  are  denied  it.  There  are 
two  classes  of  native  ministers,  (a)  Pastors. 
The  connection  of  these  is  not  with  Mission  So- 
cieties, but  with  churches  to  which  they  minister. 
(b)  The  second  class  is  variously  called  evangel- 
ists, assistant  missionaries  and  missionaries. 
The  connection  of  these  with  Mission  Societies 
is  direct  and  permanent.  They  are  agents  of 
Mission  Societies  and  not  of  the  Indian  Churches. 
They  are  their  agents  in  the  same  sense  that 
foreign   missionaries   are.     My   full   conviction 


88       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

is,  that  those  of  them  who  are  fitted  by  educa- 
tion and  character  to  undertake  the  same  duties 
and  foreign  missionaries  ought  to  have  the  same 
position.  Equal  responsibilities  imply  equal 
power.  Not  to  give  them  this  power  is  to  make 
an  invidious  distinction  of  race  and  color.  Many 
reasons  have  been  assigned  for  it,  but  none  of 
them  satisfactory.  They  are  simply  excuses. 
The  present  policy  of  Missionary  Societies  to 
native  ministers  of  this  class  is  a  secular  policy 
and  based  on  worldly  principles.  It  is  a  policy 
of  injustice,  suspicion  and  distrust,  and  cannot 
have  the  sanction  and  the  blessing  of  the  Master. 
Of  course  native  ministers  might  give  up  the 
question  of  position  and  be  content  to  serve  the 
Lord  in  whatever  position  they  are  placed. 
Many  of  them  are  most  cheerfully  doing  so.  I 
am  speaking  of  it  on  practical  business  prin- 
ciples. 

These  are  strong  words,  and  seem  to  indi- 
cate an  uncompromising  attitude  on  the  part 
of  the  speaker.  It  is,  however,  to  be  remem- 
bered that  he  was  assuredly  not  speaking  on 
his  own  behalf.  He  had  long  years  before 
decided  the  question  for  himself,  and  had  re- 
solved to  desire  nothing  and  ask  nothing  more 
than  the  privilege  of  spending  his  life  in  the 
relation  to  the  Mission  upon  which  he  entered 
when  he  began  the  work  in  Hoshyarpur.  He 
could  have  had  a  larger  salary  than  the  $36  a 
month  allotted  to  him,  and  which  sum  remained 


His  Place  as  Leader  in  the  Church       89 

constant  throughout  all  the  years  of  his  min- 
istry, but  he  never  desired  an  increase.  The 
Panjab  Mission  unanimously"  voted,  on  three 
occasions,  to  request  the  Board  to  appoint  him 
a  full  member  of  the  Mission,  with  voting 
power,  and  when  it  was  discovered  that  this 
could  not  be,  he  uttered  no  word  of  disappoint- 
ment or  complaint.  Few  finer  examples  of 
Christian  spirit  have  been  seen  in  the  modern 
Church. 


VIII 
HONORS  AND  APPRECIATIONS 

A  selfless  man  and  stainless  gentleman. — 
Tennyson. 

IN  the  preceding  pages  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  present  in  very  brief  outline  the 
course  of  this  beautiful  and  devoted 
life  as  it  touched  and  influenced  great  multi- 
tudes of  India's  people.  The  impression  pro- 
duced by  his  personality  and  work  upon  others, 
some  of  whom  lived  and  worked  in  close  rela- 
tionship with  him  and  some  knew  him  but 
slightly,  is  of  importance  as  we  attempt  to 
estimate  the  man  and  the  special  significance 
of  his  life. 

Absorbed  in  the  work  of  his  station,  singu- 
larly free  from  all  desire  for  place  or  power 
among  his  brethren,  nevertheless  recognition 
of  his  character  and  influence  was  afforded  by 
a  variety  of  bodies  and  institutions. 

In  1887,  he  with  his  wife  and  daughter  Dora, 
visited  the  United  States  upon  invitation  of 
the  Board  of  Foreign  Missions.    The  visit  was 

90 


Honors  and  Appreciations  91 

brief,  extending  over  only  five  months,  but  the 
impression  made  by  them  was  very  great,  first 
at  the  meeting  of  the  General  Assembly  at 
Omaha,  and  subsequently  in  some  of  the  im- 
portant churches  of  the  country.  Upon  this 
visit  he  was  wont  to  look  back  with  great 
pleasure,  and  it  was  during  those  brief  months 
that  not  a  few  abiding  friendships  were  formed 
with  members  of  our  Church  in  America. 

In  1 90 1  Government  bestowed  upon  him  the 
Kaisar-i-Hind  Silver  Medal  in  recognition  of 
his  public  services  to  the  City  and  District  of 
Hoshyarpur.  These  services  were  conspicuous 
during  a  large  portion  of  his  life.  Concerning 
them  Mr.  Wm.  Coldstream,  a  prominent  mem- 
ber of  the  Civil  Service,  has  written: 

"To  outsiders,  like  myself,  he  seemed  to  occupy 
a  unique  and  dominating  position.  No  other 
missionary  of  Indian  race  in  North  India,  so  far 
as  I  know,  has  been  brought  by  Providence  into 
such  a  place.  I  had  the  privilege  of  his  intimate 
friendship  for  forty  years,  and  have  seen  and 
admired  the  growing  usefulness  of  his  career. 

"To  the  primary  qualifications  for  his  life's 
work,  he  added  a  persuasive  force  of  character 
and  a  capacity  for  affairs,  which  made  him  most 
useful  in  spheres  outside  the  direct  duties  of  his 
calling.  In  common  with  other  District  officers 
of  Hoshyarpur,  I  had  a  great  reliance  on  the 
soundness  of  his  advice  and  the  wisdom  of  his 
counsel.     The  public  of  Hoshyarpur  owed  him 


92        A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

much,  for  he  was  a  prominent  and  public-spirited 
citizen.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Municipal 
Board,  and  I  recall  the  sane  and  helpful  position 
he  took  in  delicate  and  difficult  matters. 

"In  beginning  his  work,  in  the  early  sixties,  in 
Hoshyarpur,  Dr.  Chatter jee  was  happy  in  having 
Mr.  Henry  Perkins  as  head  of  the  District,  for 
that  critical  time,  he  was  sure  of  sympathy  and 
also  of  support,  so  far  as  it  was  possible  for  a 
Government  official  to  give  it.  But  Dr.  Chat- 
ter jee  was  never  dependent  upon,  nor  even 
sought  for,  the  favor  of  the  authorities,  as  such, 
in  the  promotion  of  his  work. 

"His  works  do  follow  him.  He  will  always  be 
remembered  as  the  founder  of  the  Hoshyarpur 
Mission,  and  its  strength  for  more  than  half  a 
century.  His  work  was  in  the  foundations,  at 
a  time  when  building  was  slow  and  difficult. 
The  edifice  will  remain  for  all  time  to  the  Glory 
of  God,  and  the  benefit  of  the  country  of  his 
adoption,  where  he  filled  such  an  honored  place 
and  was  so  blessed  to  the  upbuilding  of  a  strong 
Christian  Church." 

He  interested  himself  in  the  life  of  the 
people  and  was  in  himself  an  illustration  of 
the  possibility  and  desirability  of  presenting 
the  beauty  and  power  of  Christianity  in  ways 
other  than  that  of  direct  preaching,  without 
in  any  degree  losing  sight  of  such  preaching 
as  the  central  purpose  of  his  life. 

Another  prominent  civilian,  Col.  Gordon 
Young,  has  written  of  Dr.  Chatter  jee,  and  his 
great  power  in  Hoshyarpur  as  follows: 


Honors  and  Appreciations  93 

"Very  soon  after  my  arrival,  Mr.  Chatterjee 
paid  me  a  visit,  and  I  found  him  to  be  of  singu- 
larly engaging  and  pleasing  manners  and  address, 
and  we  soon  became  very  friendly.  In  the  hot 
season,  when  dressed  completely  in  white,  he 
would  stand  leaning  on  his  long  bamboo  alpen- 
stock— what  with  his  flowing  beard,  his  tur- 
banned  head  and  his  benevolent  expression,  he 
presented  a  truly  apostolic  figure. 

"We  all  recognized  in  Mr.  Chatterjee  a  man 
of  highest  Christian  character,  full  of  grace  and 
of  good  works — of  the  sweetest  temper,  and  the 
friend  of  all  the  natives  of  the  District,  whether 
they  received  him  as  a  spiritual  leader  and 
teacher  or  not.  I  received  ample  testimony  to 
this  very  soon  by  both  Hindus  and  Moham- 
medans. 

"Naturally,  as  a  Christian  missionary  who  con- 
stantly preached  in  a  Bazaar,  he  had  religious 
disputations  with  men  of  all  religious  beliefs, 
but  however  much  they  disagreed  with  his  doc- 
trine, all  respected,  and  many  loved  him.  His 
influence  always  made  for  peace. 

"I  recall  especially  the  case  of  'Ghorawaha/ 
where  Mr.  Chatter jee's  good  temper  and  wisdom 
were  conspicuous,  in  a  matter  which  at  one  time 
looked  serious.  Amongst  the  Christian  converts 
in  the  village  mentioned  were  several  Moham- 
medan Rajputs — a  proud  and  independent  class 
of  Zemindars  and  a  certain  Moulvi,  himself 
bitterly  opposed  to  Christianity,  made  an  attempt 
to  deny  these  men  access  to  their  own  drinking 
wells,  asserting  that  the  vessels  they  used  would 
defile  the  water.  This  naturally  gave  rise  to 
much  ill  feeling,  and  the  idea  spread  quickly 
and  was  adopted  in  other  towns  and  villages  in 


94       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

the  District.  It  became  necessary,  therefore,  to 
institute  proceedings  in  the  Criminal  Courts 
against  the  Moulvi  and  his  faction,  as  a  serious 
breach  of  the  peace  seemed  likely  to  occur.  The 
Christians,  of  course,  had  to  give  evidence,  and 
their  pastor  amongst  them — though  much  against 
his  will. 

"Efforts  were  made  by  some  of  the  most  loyal 
native  gentlemen  to  compose  the  dispute,  but  the 
case  had  been  instituted  by  order  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  it  was  not  possible  to  give  away  the 
missionaries'  cause  and  yield  to  the  noisy  Mo- 
hammedan faction — till  Mr.  Chatter jee  himself, 
came  forward,  and  begging  that  the  prosecution 
might  be  abandoned  in  the  interest  of  peace, 
managed  to  secure  full  recognition  of  the  Chris- 
tion  converts  at  the  hands  of  their  opponents. 

"Mr.  Chatter  jee  was,  without  any  exception, 
the  most  successful  missionary  I  ever  met.  He) 
had  a  little  circle  of  Christians  when  I  first  knew 
him,  consisting  of  his  own  household,  a  Catechist 
or  two,  and  perhaps  one  or  two  converts  only, 
but  in  the  course  of  four  or  five  years,  these 
had  expanded  to  some  scores,  and  there  are  now, 
I  believe,  between  five  or  six  thousand;  all  the 
work  of  one  servant  of  God." 

It  remains  to  quote  from  still  another  of  the 
"Rulers  of  the  Panjab."  Sir  Wm.  Mackworth 
Young,  Lieutenant  Governor  of  the  Province 
from  1 897- 1 902,  has  sent  this  striking  estimate 
of  our  departed  brother: 

"I  had  the  privilege  of  Dr.  Chatterjee's  friend- 
ship from  March,  1869,  when  I  was  stationed  at 
Hoshyarpur  through  October,  1870.    The  beloved 


Honors  and  Appreciations  95 

Henry  Perkins  was  Deputy  Commissioner,  so 
the  Civil  Station  and  the  Missionary  Quarters 
were  in  complete  harmony.  Chatter jee,  in  the 
absence  of  a  Government  Chaplain,  used  to  hold 
a  Sunday  Service  for  the  Station,  and  greatly 
did  we  value  his  ministrations.  His  sermons 
were  always  most  instructive,  and  he  was  a 
close  student  of  the  best  books,  Alfred's  Greek 
Testament  being  one  of  his  favorites.  This 
happy  relation  between  him  and  the  English 
residents  of  the  Station  continued  for  many 
years.  No  less  than  five  Bishops  cordially  ap- 
proving of  his  gratuitous  ministrations.  We 
became  fast  friends,  and  remained  such  after  we 
ceased  to  be  near  neighbors.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  attractive  men  I  ever  met.  With  great 
gentleness  and  selflessness  he  combined  a  clear 
judgment  and  a  firm  purpose.  I  remember  his 
dining  with  me  in  camp,  and  refusing  meat. 
Asked  the  reason,  he  said  he  had  given  it  up 
because  a  young  enquirer  had  turned  his  back 
upon  him,  when  he  had  seemed  to  be  attracted 
by  his  preaching,  because  he  saw  a  fowl  hanging 
up  in  his  kitchen  'shuldari'  ready  to  be  cooked 
for  his  dinner.  He  acquired  great  influence  in 
the  neighborhood  owing  to  his  sympathy  and 
reasonableness,  and  was  on  several  occasions 
useful  in  local  disputes.  For  many  years  he  dis- 
charged public  duties  to  which  he  was  appointed 
by  election  or  by  order  of  the  Government,  and 
exhibited  the  qualities  which,  when  fully  devel- 
oped, led  to  his  becoming  Moderator  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  India.  He  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  the 
most  perfect  embodiment  of  Oriental  Christian- 
ity known  to  me  during  my  Indian  experience." 


96       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

The  above  will  suffice  to  show  what  an  ex- 
traordinary degree  he  was  able  to  bring  the 
impress  of  his  Christian  personality  to  bear 
upon  all  classes  of  the  community.  These 
testimonies,  selected  from  amongst  many,  and 
because  of  lack  of  space  greatly  abbreviated, 
will  it  is  hoped,  enable  those  who  read  this 
record  to  recognize  something  of  the  possi- 
bilities in  the  life  of  a  Missionary  in  India, 
in  its  influence  upon  a  great  community  and 
the  impress  it  may  have  upon  those  who  are 
placed  as  rulers  in  the  land.  And  here  it  is 
fitting  that  mention  be  made  of  the  debt  owed 
by  the  Church  at  large  to  a  group  of  English 
civilians  in  the  Pan  jab  whose  influence  as 
Christian  men  has,  ever  since  the  annexation  in 
1849,  Deen  a  mighty  factor  in  the  establishment 
of  the  Kingdom.  They  were  not  free  to  teach 
or  to  preach  Christianity,  but  their  lives,  their 
sympathy  and  their  prayers  have  left  behind 
them  an  impress  that  can  hardly  be  overesti- 
mated. There  have  been  such  men  as  Lord 
Lawrence  and  his  brother  Henry,  Sir  Herbert 
Edwardes,  Sir  Donald  McLeod,  Sir  Charles 
Aitchison,  Sir  Robert  Montgomery  and  others 
including  those  whose  words  have  been  quoted 
above. 

In  1 90 1,  the  Degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity 


Honors  and  Appreciations  97 

was  conferred  upon  Mr.  Chatterjee  by  Wash- 
ington and  Jefferson  College.  Nine  years  later 
the  same  honorary  Degree  was  conferred  upon 
him,  side  by  side  with  the  Lord  Bishop  of 
Canterbury  and  our  own  Mr.  Robert  E.  Speer, 
by  the  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Edin- 
burgh. 

In  speaking  of  honors  received,  he  said: 

"I  never  sought  any  of  them.  I  could  have 
been  quite  happy  and  content  with  the  honor  of 
being  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ  and  a  laborer  in 
His  vineyard.  They  came  to  me  as  the  gifts  of 
God,  intended  for  His  glory  and  I  accepted  them 
gratefully.    It  is  my  Father  that  honoreth  me/  " 

In  19 io  he  attended  as  a  delegate  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  the  great  Edinburgh  Con- 
ference. 

Mr.  Gairdner  in  his  account  of  that  great 
assemblage,  speaks  of  Dr.  Chatterjee  in  these 
graphic  words: 

"Among  the  members  of  the  Conference  is 
yonder  venerable — one  might  say  high-priestly — 
figure.  A  pure  Brahman  by  descent,  with  long 
silky-white  beard,  tail-uprightly  figure,  aristo- 
cratic gentle  features,  and  mild  Indian  voice;  a 
Bengali  convert  of  the  great  Dr.  Duff;  now  an 
honored  minister  of  the  Panjab,  chosen  to  be 
the  first  Moderator  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  India." 

It  is  also  recorded  that  on  one  of  the  days 

of  the  great  Conference  which  was  attended 


98       A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

by  twelve  hundred  delegates  from  all  parts  of 
the  world  and  leaders  of  the  most  important 
sections  of  the  Christian  Church  and  the  Mis- 
sionary Societies  and  Boards,  the  morning 
worship  in  the  great  Assembly  Hall  in  Edin- 
burgh was  led  by  Dr.  Chatter jee,  "The  vener- 
able delegate  from  India." 

The  years  following  that  memorable  visit 
in  1910,  witnessed  a  gradual  weakening  of  his 
bodily  powers.  The  people  of  India  do  not, 
as  a  rule,  retain  their  full  physical  and  mental 
powers  to  so  great  an  age  as  do  those  whose 
lives  are  spent  in  the  West.  And  yet  up  to 
within  a  few  months  of  his  departure  from 
us,  at  the  ripe  age  of  seventy-seven  years,  Dr. 
Chatter  jee  continued  to  labor  with  great  effi- 
ciency, guiding  with  remarkable  wisdom  the 
affairs  of  his  great  field. 

Meanwhile  he  welcomed  to  a  share  in  the 
duties  and  responsibilities  connected  with  City 
and  District,  first,  two  lady  missionaries,  Miss 
Margaret  Given  and  Miss  Caroline  Downs,  the 
latter  of  whom  after  a  life  of  long  and  beau- 
tiful service,  passed  to  her  reward  in  1914;  and 
later  the  Rev.  A.  B.  Gould  and  his  wife  Mrs. 
Helen  Newton  Gould,  also  Miss  A.  M.  Kerr. 

For  several  years,  having  become  conscious 
of  his  failing  powers,  he  faced  the  inevitable 


Honors  and  Appreciations  99 

day,  when  he  should  be  compelled  to  retire 
from  active  participation  in  the  things  that 
had  claimed  the  many  years  of  his  vigorous 
manhood.  Opportunities  for  counsel  with 
those  whom  he  recognized  as  his  closest  friends 
were  eagerly  sought,  and  his  scrupulous 
anxiety  lest  he  might,  by  continuing  in  it  too 
long,  injure  the  work  into  which  he  had 
poured  the  energies  of  a  lifetime,  was  obvious 
to  all. 

Those  who  were  present  at  the  annual  meet- 
ing of  the  Directors  of  the  Forman  Christian 
College  in  19 14,  will  never  lose  from  memory 
the  impression  made  upon  them  by  the  words 
spoken  when  he  rose  at  the  close  of  the  first 
session,  to  ask  permission  to  retire  from  the 
presidency  of  that  body,  an  office  which  he 
held  uninterruptedly  for  a  period  of  twenty- 
eight  years.  Moved  by  deep  emotion,  so  great 
as  to,  in  some  measure,  hinder  the  fullest  ut- 
terance, he  told  us  of  his  love  for  the  College, 
his  estimate  of  the  great  work  it  had  done 
and  would  still  do,  and  referred  to  this  neces- 
sity for  breaking  the  ties  which  had  been  grow- 
ing stronger  and  stronger  during  all  the  years, 
and  this  stepping  aside  into  a  life  of  com- 
parative inactivity  as  the  greatest  trial  of  his 
life. 


100     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

A  few  days  later,  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Pan  jab  Mission,  he  expressed  his  desire  to  be 
relieved  of  a  large  part  of  his  work,  and  in 
accordance  with  his  wish,  the  work  of  the 
District  with  its  great  body  of  Christians 
dwelling  in  the  villages,  was  transferred  to 
the  charge  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gould.  Another 
year  of  gradually  increasing  weakness  fol- 
lowed, yet  it  was  by  no  means  a  year  of  in- 
activity, but  one  of  real  helpfulness  and  power 
amongst  the  comparatively  few  people  whom 
he  was  still  able  to  touch  by  the  influence  of 
his  life  and  counsel.  The  members  of  his 
family  and  all  those  who  knew  him  best  shrank 
from  the  crisis  which  was  sure  to  come  when 
the  last  of  the  ties  which  bound  him  to  his 
beloved  Hoshyarpur  should  be  severed.  When 
the  members  of  the  Mission  were  assembled 
in  October,  191 5,  he  was  with  them,  but  un- 
able to  attend  many  of  the  sessions.  Feeling 
that  he  could  not  bear  the  strain  of  addressing 
them  from  the  floor  of  the  house,  he  penned 
and  sent  in  to  be  read  a  remarkable  letter,  full 
of  expression  of  that  love  which  he  felt  for 
them  all,  and  of  appreciation  of  the  confidence 
which  had  been  reposed  in  him,  and  of  his 
gratitude  to  God  for  the  privilege  of  serving 
together  with  them  for  so  many  years  in  rela- 


Honors  and  Appreciations  101 

tions  of  courtesy,  confidence  and  mutual  affec- 
tion. 

Compelled  to  share  his  conviction  that  he 
should  be  set  free  from  all  work  and  responsi- 
bility and  in  the  earnest  hope  that  he  and  his 
wife  might  be  spared  for  future  years  of  less 
strenuous  service,  than  would  be  required  of 
them  were  they  to  remain  in  their  old  station, 
the  members  of  the  Mission  unanimously  took 
such  action  as  provided  for  their  comfortable 
residence  at  Phillour  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
borhood of  the  Rev.  H.  Golaknath,  a  brother 
of  Mrs.  Chatterjee.  After  this  removal,  Dr. 
Chatterjee  left  his  new  home  on  but  one  occa- 
sion, and  that  was  when  he  attended  a  meeting 
of  the  Presbytery  at  Jalandhar.  His  ability 
to  endure  the  fatigue  of  even  so  short  a  journey 
was  questioned,  and  yet  he  felt  that  he  must 
attend  that  meeting  in  order  that  he  might 
personally  arrange  the  final  disposition  of 
some  items  of  business  in  connection  with 
which  he  had  not  up  to  that  time  been  able  to 
divest  himself  of  all  responsibility. 

He  returned  home  in  a  condition  of  great 
weakness,  which  continued  until  May  31st, 
19 16,  when  he  entered  into  rest. 

On  the  evening  of  the  day  following  we 
laid  his  body  to  rest  in  the  little  cemetery  at 


102     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

Hoshyarpur.  A  great  multitude  gathered  to 
do  honor  to  his  memory.  There  were  the 
members  of  his  family,  many  members  of  the 
Panjab  Mission,  scores  of  Indian  Christian 
men  and  women,  who  knew  him  as  their 
spiritual  father,  and  felt  that  the  world  would 
be  very  empty  for  them  without  him,  Hindus, 
Mohammedans  and  Sikhs,  to  the  number  of 
many  hundreds,  and  the  European  officials  of 
the  Station. 

As,  the  service  over,  we  turned  from  the 
place,  one  thought  concerning  the  preeminently 
useful  life  that  had  closed  was  paramount. 
The  conviction  was  borne  in  upon  the  mind 
that  the  real  secret  of  the  unfailing  power  and 
beauty  of  the  service  that  had  so  blessed 
Hoshyarpur,  and  reached  far  beyond  into  the 
greater  world  could  be  found  in  the  experience 
of  that  morning  many  years  ago,  when  hus- 
band and  wife  with  one  mind  and  heart  had 
turned  from  the  temptation  to  enter  a  walk  of 
life  where  more  of  wealth  and  fame  were 
promised  them,  and  had  deliberately  chosen  to 
spend  their  days,  as  they  believed,  in  obscurity, 
themselves  unrecognized  by  the  world,  that 
they  might  with  all  their  powers,  serve  Him 
whom  they  loved,  and  whose  voice  they  were 
convinced  that  they  had  heard. 


IX 

THE  MAN  AS  SEEN  BY  HIS 
COLLEAGUES 

"The  fragrance  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ." 

UPON  hearing  of  his  call  to  rest,  the 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.  S.  A., 
under  whose  auspices  he  had  labored  for  so 
long,  passed  the  following  minute: 

"With  the  feeling  of  special  grief  and  personal 
loss,  the  Board  received  tidings  by  mail  from 
the  Panjab  Mission  of  the  death  on  the  evening 
of  May  31st,  191 6,  of  the  Rev.  K.  C.  Chatter jee 
of  Hoshyarpur. 

"Dr.  Chatter  jee  was  a  unique  figure  in  the 
councils  and  work  of  the  Christian  Church  in 
India.  His  parents  were  high  caste  Hindus,  and 
as  a  Brahman  youth  he  entered  Dr.  Duff's  col- 
lege in  Calcutta,  and  through  Dr.  Duff's  influence 
was  led  at  the  age  of  twenty  to  become  a  Chris- 
tian. Upon  graduation  he  became  the  headmaster 
of  the  Jullundar  Mission  School,  and  later 
Professor  of  Mathematics  in  one  of  the  colleges 
in  Lahore.  In  1868  he  was  ordained  and  took 
charge  of  the  work  in  the  Hoshyarpur  district, 
where  for  many  years  he  has  been  pastor  of  one 

103 


104     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

of  the  largest  native  Churches  in  India,  besides 
having  care  of  all  the  missionary  work  through- 
out the  district.  In  1887  he  visited  the  United 
States,  where  he  was  greatly  honored  among  the 
Churches,  and  left  behind  him  when  he  returned 
to  India  the  fragrance  of  his  high  devotion  and 
noble  character.  For  over  twenty-five  years  he 
has  been  president  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of 
Forman  College.  In  1903  he  was  made  Moderator 
of  the  First  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  India.  He  was  one  of  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions  at  the  World  Missionary  Conference 
in  Edinburgh  in  1910,  where  he  received  the 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity  from  Edinburgh 
University.  Dr.  Chatter jee  was  honored  and  be- 
loved by  all  the  missionaries  as  one  of  their 
wisest  leaders  and  truest  friends,  and  he  was 
respected  and  revered  by  all  classes  of  the  popu- 
lation, Brahmans  and  low  castes,  Europeans, 
Eurasians  and  Indian  Christians. 

"Mrs.  Chatter  jee,  who  survives  her  husband, 
was  a  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Golak  Nath,  the  first 
Brahman  convert  in  our  Presbyterian  Missions. 
One  of  Dr.  Chatter  jee's  daughters  took  a  medical 
course  in  the  United  States  and  until  her  mar- 
riage worked  with  her  parents  in  Hoshyarpur. 
His  other  children  have  all  honored  their 
parentage.  The  Board  extends  to  them  and  to 
the  Missions  and  to  the  Church  in  India  its  deep 
sympathy  in  this  great  loss,  and  records  its 
gratitude  to  God  for  the  noble  character  and 
far-reaching  influence  of  one  who  gave  himself 
wholly  to  Jesus  Christ  as  his  Lord  and  served 
Him  with  signal  ability  through  a  long  and 
blameless  life." 


The  Man  as  Seen  by  his  Colleagues     105 

The  relationship  existing  between  members 
of  the  same  Mission  in  a  Foreign  land  is  fre- 
quently very  close  and  tender.  Owing,  how- 
ever, to  inherent  diversities  in  temperament 
and  the  presence  of  "human  nature"  even  in 
very  devoted  Christians,  cases  of  serious  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  out  of  which  more  or  less 
grave  misunderstandings  have  arisen,  are  not 
unheard  of.  But  it  is  only  just  to  say  that 
these  are  comparatively  rare,  surprisingly  so 
when  one  bears  in  mind  the  circumstances  in 
which  they  live  and  labor.  Though  not  tech- 
nically a  "full"  member  of  the  Panjab  Mis- 
sion, he  and  his  devoted  and  charming  wife 
were  given  a  place  in  the  confidence,  intimate 
friendship  and  affection  of  the  members  of 
that  body  second  to  none.  Many  of  Dr.  Chat- 
terjee's  most  intimate  friends  and  associates 
had  preceded  him  to  the  heavenly  rest.  Notable 
among  these  because  of  their  relation  to  him 
in  the  earlier  days  of  his  ministry,  were  Rev. 
John  Newton,  and  Rev.  Chas.  W.  Forman, 
D.D.,  but  one  thinks  of  a  score  or  more  of 
others,  who,  were  they  here  to  speak,  could 
tell  of  days  and  years  of  precious  fellowship 
with  this  prince  amongst  men,  who  counted  it 
all  joy  to  serve  with  them  the  Master  whom 
they  all  loved.     Amongst  those  who  remain 


106     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

a  few  preeminently  qualified  through  long 
association  and  personal  friendship,  to  estimate 
the  man  and  his  work,  have  responded  to  a 
request  for  some  such  statement. 

The  Rev.  E.  M.  Wherry,  D.D.,  of  Lud- 
hiana  writes: 

The  trait  in  his  character  which  most  im- 
pressed me  was  his  love.  He  was  uniformly 
gentle  in  his  treatment  of  others.  Under  provo- 
cation he  was  very  self-possessed.  I  never  saw 
him  resent  an  injury.  He  would  smile  and  even 
seek  to  condone  the  injury.  His  thoughtful  in- 
terest in  the  poor  Christians  of  his  district  was 
most  marked.  Where  pecuniary  aid  would  be 
an  injurious  precedent,  he  would  plan  relief  in 
some  way  consistent  with  the  charity.  In 
ecclesiastical  meetings  and  in  conferences,  where 
he  was  strenuously  engaged,  his  manner  was 
uniformly  respectful  and  courteous.  His  coun- 
sel was  marked  by  wisdom.  He  always  had  a 
wide  perspective  and  foresaw  the  ultimate  effect 
of  legislation.  Among  our  Indian  brethren  no 
one  did  more  to  promote  the  union  of  the  various 
Presbyterian  bodies  to  constitute  a  National 
Presbyterian  Church.'  We  all  recognized  this 
fact  and  voiced  our  belief  in  making  him  the  first 
Moderator. 

In  all  his  work  he  had  the  aid  and  counsel  of 
his  wife,  who  shared  in  all  his  anxieties  and 
aided  in  all  his  work.  As  a  consultative  member 
of  our  Mission,  as  Moderator,  in  Presbytery  and 
as  a  delegate  to  General  Assembly,  he  never 
failed  to  do  the  Master's  will. 


The  Man  as  Seen  by  his  Colleagues     107 

The  Rev.  J.  J.  Lucas,  D.D.,  of  Allahabad, 
writes: 

In  1884  Dr.  Chatter jee  was  elected  Moderator 
of  the  Synod  of  North  India,  the  first  Indian 
called  to  that  position;  the  Missionary  who  pre- 
sented his  name  with  a  few  words  of  apprecia- 
tion, was  asked  as  he  left  the  Ludhiana  Church 
that  morning,  whether  it  was  proper  to  speak  of 
a  man  in  his  presence  and  at  once  it  was  brought 
to  his  memory  how  often  Paul  praised  his  fel- 
low-workers, and  that  in  open  letters  to  be  read 
by  them  and  by  the  whole  Church.  He  might 
have  added  that  such  words  of  appreciation 
would  rather  deepen  the  sense  of  demerit  in  men 
like  Dr.  Chatter  jee,  rather  than  fill  them  with 
pride.  And  so  it  was,  for  in  all  the  years  that 
followed  bringing  honor  after  honor  to  our  be- 
loved Dr.  Chatter  jee,  they  left  him  the  same 
humble,  gracious,  gentle,  loving  disciple  of  the 
Lord  Jesus.  There  was  something  in  his  presence 
and  speech  and  life  that  the  apostle  calls  "The 
fragrance  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ" — that 
something  which  like  a  fragrance  is  so  pervasive 
and  so  indefinable,  but  which  is  felt,  and  which, 
after  all,  is  the  best  witness  to  the  life  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  in  the  heart.  When  elected  by  a 
unanimous  vote  Moderator  of  the  first  General 
Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  India,  he 
was  deeply  moved  and  spoke  of  many  influences 
which  had  wrought  together  in  the  hand  of  God 
to  mould  and  shape  his  life.  When  a  year  later 
he  opened  the  Assembly  with  a  sermon,  he  re- 
vealed the  secret  of  his  life  in  the  message  he 
gave  to  his  fellow-workers — "Even  the  youths 
shall  faint  and  be  weary,  and  the  young  men  shall 


108      A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

utterly  fall,  but  they  that  wait  on  the  Lord  shall 
renew  their  strength;  they  shall  mount  up  with 
wings  as  eagles ;  they  shall  run  and  not  be  weary ; 
they  shall  walk  and  not  be  faint."  Herein  is 
the  secret  of  the  strength  and  beauty  of  Dr.  Chat- 
ter jee's  life;  its  humility  and  dignity,  its  frag- 
rance and  fruitfulness,  its  unweariedness  in  the 
service  of  Christ,  and  its  patient  continuance  in 
well-doing  unto  the  very  end. 

The  Rev.  E.  P.  Newton  of  Khanna,  writes: 

I  have  known  Dr.  Chatter jee  for  42  years, 
and  have  met  him  and  been  brought  into  close 
relations  with  him  many  times  during  that  period. 

Among  the  points  in  his  character  which  im- 
pressed me  was  entire  trustworthiness.  During 
practically  that  whole  time  he  was  in  whole  charge 
of  the  work  in  the  Hoshyarpur  district,  and 
he  set  an  example  to  all  of  us  of  faithfulness 
and  diligence  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties.  It 
was  only  when  increasing  age  and  ill  health 
began  to  weigh  heavily  on  him  that  the  growth 
and  remarkable  prosperity  of  the  work  led  him 
to  ask  for  the  help  of  a  colleague. 

He  was  also  a  hard  worker.  Apart  from  the 
care  of  a  large  Christian  community  in  the  city 
and  district,  he  was  always  engaged  in  literary 
work  directed  to  the  furtherance  of  the  gospel 
and  the  upbuilding  of  the  Church  in  this  coun- 
try. He  was  a  faithful  preacher  in  city  and 
village,  and  with  Mrs.  Chatter  jee  conducted  a 
boarding  school  for  Christian  girls  in  Hoshy- 
arpur. 

Dr.  Chatterjee  was  a  humble  minded  minister 
of  Christ.  He  was  a  Brahman  of  high  educated 
attainments,    yet    devoted    his    life    chiefly    to 


The  Man  as  Seen  by  his  Colleagues     109 

evangelistic  and  pastoral  work  among  the  out- 
caste  population  of  his  district,  and  his  self-deny- 
ing efforts  were  in  an  eminent  degree  fruitful. 
Indeed  at  a  time  when  in  all  other  districts  of 
our  Mission  there  were,  in  the  villages,  no 
Christians,  he  had  already  gathered  large  num- 
bers into  the  Church.  Never  once  have  I  heard 
him  call  attention  to  his  high  caste  origin.  To 
him  all  Christians  were  his  brothers  in  Christ, 
and  all  others,  whether  high  or  low  in  the 
world's  estimation,  were  equally  in  need  of  the 
regenerating  grace  of  God,  and  the  atoning 
blood  of  Christ,  in  which  alone  he  himself  trusted. 
When  he  turned  his  back  on  Hinduism,  and  in 
baptism  confessed  the  faith  of  Christ,  he  unre- 
servedly threw  in  his  lot  with  Christ's  people 
and  accepted  the  Gospel  as  the  sole  rule  of  his 
life.  Though  his  home  was  in  Bengal,  and  he 
was  by  nationality  a  Bengali,  yet  almost  the  whole 
of  his  life  was  spent  in  the  Pan  jab.  Here  he 
lived,  worked,  and  died,  loved  and  respected  by 
all  who  knew  him,  both  European  and  Indian, 
and  his  death  has  left  a  gap  in  the  Indian 
Church  of  this  province  which  it  will  be  hard 
to  fill. 

The  Rev.  H.  C.  Velte  of  Saharanpur,  writes : 

It  is  not  easy  to  write  down  one's  impressions 
of  Dr.  Chatterjee  for  all  one  can  say  seems  so 
inadequate,  falls  short  of  what  he  really  was. 
His  greatness  consisted  not  so  much  in  any  one 
preeminent  virtue,  as  in  a  combination  of  all 
those  qualities  that  constitute  the  ideal  Christian 
character,  or  make  the  perfect  man  in  Christ. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  also  said  that  it  was  in  the 
passive  rather  than  in  the  active  virtues  of  the 


110     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

Christian  life  that  Dr.  Chatter jee  excelled.  He 
reminded  one  of  St.  John  rather  than  of  St. 
Paul.  The  graces  which  made  his  life  so  beauti- 
ful and  so  lovely,  were  the  graces  St.  Paul 
enumerates  as  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit:  love,  joy, 
peace,  long-suffering,  kindness,  goodness,  faith- 
fulness, meekness,  self-control.  Dr.  Chatterjee's 
nobleness  was  of  the  highest  kind,  not  nobleness 
of  birth,  though  he  possessed  that  too,  but  noble- 
ness of  character,  and  of  a  character  in  which 
all  the  virtues  of  a  Christian  life  were  blended 
together  into  one  harmonic  whole. 

Perhaps  if  we  begin  to  analyze  Dr.  Chat- 
ter jee's  character,  we  shall  find  that  the  outstand- 
ing quality  in  it  was  his  devotion  to  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Almost  the  last  words  that  fell 
from  his  lips  were  these,  "I  am  the  servant  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  With  Zinzendorf  he 
might  have  said,  "I  have  but  one  passion,  and 
that  is  Jesus."  From  the  time  of  his  conversion 
to  his  last  day  he  truly  and  whole-heartedly 
loved  and  served  the  Saviour,  to  whom  he  owed 
so  much,  and  his  love  to  Christ  burned  with 
more  and  more  brightness  to  the  end. 

Among  the  qualities  that  impressed  me,  and 
I  am  sure  many  others  who  knew  him,  was  the 
simplicity  of  his  faith.  "In  all  the  best  men 
you  meet,"  someone  has  said,  "the  thing  that  is 
most  peculiar  about  them  is  the  child's  heart 
they  bear  within  the  man's."  Dr.  Chatter  jee 
was  a  man  of  great  faith,  but  what  made  it  so 
great  was  that  he  ever  carried  with  him  the  spirit 
of  a  little  child.  In  his  conversations,  in  his 
sermons,  but  above  all  in  his  prayers,  did  his 
simple  childlike  faith  reveal  itself. 

Another  feature  that  made  him  so  lovable  to 
all  was  his  gentleness  and  courtesy.    In  him  the. 


The  Man  as  Seen  by  his  Colleagues     111 

Christian  gentleman  was  seen  almost  to  perfec- 
tion. It  is  impossible  to  associate  him  with  any- 
thing unseemly  or  unfitting.  He  frequently  was 
a  guest  at  our  house,  and  we  always  felt  that 
his  very  presence  was  a  benediction.  And  all  this 
courtesy  came  to  him  so  naturally. 

Modesty  and  humility  were  also  very  striking 
features  in  Dr.  Chatter  jee's  character.  Though 
like  Paul  he  might  have  had  confidence  in  the 
"flesh"  and  indulged  in  boasting,  but  he  never 
did;  he  was  free  from  all  pride.  He  was  only 
a  poor  sinner  whom  Jesus  had  saved.  Though 
born  of  the  highest  of  Brahman  families,  yet  he 
mingled  freely  with  his  poor  low  caste  brethren ; 
in  fact  he  was  one  of  the  first  in  the  Punjab 
Mission  to  begin  work  among  these  classes, 
bringing  thousands  of  them  to  Christ.  And  in  his 
intercourse  with  all  classes  there  was  the  same 
modesty  and  humility. 

Conscientiousness  and  faithfulness  were  also 
striking  qualities  in  Dr.  Chatter jee's  character. 
He  had  a  very  high  sense  of  duty.  He  was  ever 
conscious  of  his  responsibility  not  to  men  but 
to  his  Divine  Master,  and  his  aim  was  to  be 
well  pleasing  to  Him.  His  accounts  were  always 
in  perfect  order.  Every  letter  he  received  was 
promptly  and  carefully  answered.  Every  duty 
assigned  to  him  was  most  faithfully  performed. 
His  reports  to  Committees  and  to  the  Mission 
were  never  a  day  late.  Character  often  reveals 
itself  in  little  things  and  it  was  in  the  little  things 
that  Dr.  Chatterjee  proved  himself  so  faithful, 
and  therein  we  see  the  greatness  of  the  man. 

In  the  light  of  these  appreciations  of  Dr. 
Chatterjee  and  his  work,  there  seems  little 


112     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

need  that  more  be  said  concerning  the  signifi- 
cance of  his  life.  In  his  personality,  in  his 
many-sided  capacity  he  was  an  unusual  man. 
He  doubtless  would  have  done  good  work  in 
a  field  other  than  India,  and  have  risen  to  a 
position  of  more  or  less  prominence  amongst 
his  fellows. 

In  the  relationship  of  intimate  friendship, 
for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  he  re- 
vealed himself  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it 
easy  for  one  to  recognize  and  approve  the 
fidelity  of  the  pictures  drawn  by  those  whose 
words  have  been  quoted. 

In  estimating  the  significance  of  his  life,  it 
is  well  to  consider  the  bearing  of  such  a  career 
upon  the  whole  question  of  effort  on  behalf 
of  the  class  which,  in  his  youth,  he  repre- 
sented. 

The  slow  progress  of  the  Gospel  amongst 
the  higher  castes  and  more  or  less  enlightened 
peoples  of  India  is  well  known  and  greatly 
lamented.  Some  of  the  causes  of  this  have 
been  alluded  to  elsewhere,  but  a  full  discussion 
of  them  would  be  clearly  beyond  the  limits 
which  we  have  set  for  this  sketch. 

But  that  the  efforts  of  Christian  Missions 
amongst  the  educated  classes  have  resulted  in 
failure  is  very  far  from  being  true.  When 
Kali  Charan  Chatter jee  was  converted  through 


The  Man  as  Seen  by  his  Colleagues     113 

the  agency  of  a  Christian  School  and  College, 
through  his  conversion  that  school  set  in  mo- 
tion a  long  line  of  influences  that  eventually 
touched  the  lives  of  many  thousands.  A  great 
force  came  into  operation  when  he  forsook 
the  faith  of  his  fathers. 

In  spite  of  the  very  valid  objections  to  com- 
parisons which  we  all  recognize,  the  statement 
is  here  ventured  that  to  the  writer,  at  least,  no 
missionary  in  India  of  any  race  or  country, 
has  been  known  regarding  whom  it  could  be 
affirmed,  with  any  degree  of  confidence  that 
the  fruit  of  his  life  was  more  rich  than  that 
borne  by  the  life  of  our  departed  brother. 

The  fact  that  a  knowledge  of  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ  wrought  this  marvelous 
transformation  in  a  life  that  had  its  begin- 
nings in  a  form  of  teaching  and  in  practices 
so  absolutely  at  variance  with  the  teachings 
and  the  life  of  Jesus  constitutes  an  abiding 
ground  of  confidence  for  the  future.  It  is 
worth  remembering  that  the  power  that  came 
to  him  lifted  him  from  out  the  Pantheism 
and  Polytheism  with  which  his  mind  and 
heart  had  in  childhood  been  impregnated  and 
saturated,  into  the  acceptance,  in  the  most 
whole-hearted  manner,  of  the  entire  substance 
of  Christian  revelation,  and  that  this  work  had 
been  accomplished  by  the  time  he  had  reached 


114     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

the  years  of  full  manhood.  Thus  there  lay 
before  him  on  the  day  of  his  baptism  a  life 
of  full  three-score  years,  and  we  have  seen 
how  he  used  them. 

Scores  of  others,  born  and  reared  under 
similar  conditions,  there  have  been  whose  lives 
and  labors  have  illustrated  the  same  things, 
and  teach  us  not  only  that  there  is  no  occasion 
for  despondency,  but  also  that  in  labor  for  the 
class  which  embraces  the  natural  leaders  of 
the  masses  of  the  people,  the  Church  has  be- 
fore her  a  sphere  of  unlimited  opportunity  and 
promise. 

Individuals  from  amongst  this  portion  of  the 
population  are  responding  to  the  message  of 
Christ,  here  one  and  there  another,  and  these 
are  enriching  the  Church  in  her  leadership,  a 
leadership  possessed  of  a  quality  which  would 
have  been  largely  lacking,  had  it  not  been  for 
the  form  of  work  which  the  uninformed  have 
sometimes  characterized  as  a  failure.  Many 
of  these  are,  with  enthusiasm  and  power  like 
to  that  shown  by  the  Chatter jees,  throwing 
themselves  into  effort  for  the  lowly,  the  ig- 
norant, the  "untouchable,"  who  today  are  re- 
sponding in  thousands  to  the  invitation  of  the 
Gospel. 

The  brother  who  has  gone  has  left  to  hig 
Indian  brethren  a  message  of  hope.     Where 


The  Man  as  Seen  by  his  Colleagues     115 

he  walked  they  too  may  walk  and  win  the 
same  victory.  A  lamentable  thing  it  will  be 
if  the  young  men  of  India  fail  to  catch  the 
stimulus  of  his  life. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  more  of  the  people 
of  the  West  did  not  have  an  opportunity  of 
seeing  and  knowing  him.  Had  this  been  pos- 
sible, thej-  would  unquestionably  have  found 
through  their  knowledge  of  him,  not  only 
occasion  to  thank  God  for  what  He  wrought 
through  one  who  came  out  from  Brahmanism 
unto  Christ,  but  would  also  have  seen  in  him 
and  in  the  great  company  represented  by  him, 
though  still  unwilling  to  accept  Christ,  that 
which  would  have  finally  convinced  them  that 
there  is  no  more  urgent  and  promising  field 
for  Christian  effort  to  be  found  anywhere  than 
that  furnished  by  the  people  from  amongst 
whom  Kali  Charan  came. 

One  of  the  great  sons  of  that  land,  who 
himself,  alas!  never  touched  but  the  hem  of 
the  Saviour's  garment,  but  who  nevertheless 
seemed  to  have  caught  some  vision  of  the 
things  that  are  to  be,  once  said: 

"None  but  Jesus,  none  but  Jesus  deserves 
to  wear  the  bright  and  glorious  diadem  of 
India, — and  Jesus  shall  have  it." 

Shall  we  Christians  say  less  than  this? 


X 

THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW 

IT  is  still,  in  spite  of  all  the  changes  that 
have  taken  place  in  the  attitude  of  many, 
indeed  an  appalling  prospect  that  is  faced 
by  a  Hindu  when  he  stands  on  the  brink  of 
decision  for  Christ.  He  must  literally  for- 
sake all  if  he  would  follow  Jesus.  This  he 
knows  in  a  general  way,  but  only  realizes  in 
its  fullest  meaning  in  the  days  that  follow 
the  public  profession  of  his  faith.  He  has 
to  fight  his  way  through  a  host  of  antagonisms 
and  obstructions,  sufficient  to  appal,  if  not  to 
overpower,  a  man  of  ordinary  courage  and 
determination. 

Young  converts  have  been  kidnapped,  im- 
prisoned, tortured,  even  put  to  death.  Some 
have  disappeared  never  to  be  heard  of  more. 
The  intensity  of  caste  and  racial  feeling  and 
the  cruel  bigotry  manifested  in  connection 
with  it  cannot  be  readily  imagined  by  those 
who  have  not  come  into  direct  contact  with  it. 
A  Brahman,  well  known  to  me,  was  a  drunk- 

X16 


The  Old  and  the  New  117 

ard  and  a  notorious  profligate.  He  heard  the 
message  of  the  Gospel,  and  having  accepted 
it  was  baptized.  His  faithful  wife  hearing 
of  this  fled  from  their  home  in  horror.  A 
drunken  and  unclean  husband  she  could  en- 
dure, but  not  a  Christian,  a  man  who  had 
violated  the  rules  of  caste.  Scores  of  times 
we  have  heard  from  the  lips  of  earnest 
seekers  after  God,  such  cries  as  these:  "I 
cannot  break  my  mother's  heart."  "Such  dis- 
grace will  surely  kill  my  father."  "I  will  be 
a  Christian  at  heart,  but  cannot  bring  sorrow 
and  shame  upon  those  whom  I  love,  by  break- 
ing caste."  Are  we  greatly  surprised  that  all 
hesitate  and  many  turn  away  altogether  in 
face  of  these  tremendous  difficulties?  We 
are  told,  and  with  truth,  that  the  power  of 
caste  is  decreasing,  but  any  marked  change  in 
this  particular  is  largely  confined  to  the 
dwellers  in  the  cities  and  larger  towns.  In  the 
little  hamlets  of  the  land  where  are  found  the 
majority  of  the  total  population,  little  altera- 
tion in  the  attitude  of  the  people  toward  their 
own  or  others'  caste  privileges  and  obligations 
is  to  be  discerned.  It  is  further  to  be  noted 
that  even  where  rules  have  been  relaxed  and 
many  of  the  more  enlightened  have  come  to 
the    point    of    openly    disregarding    the    ob- 


118     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

servances  enjoined  by  the  Shastras  and  en- 
forced by  custom,  another  force  has  entered 
to  preserve  the  family  and  caste  from  disin- 
tegration. This  may  be  described  as  a  certain 
family  or  racial  pride.  In  every  large  and 
enlightened  community  men  who  themselves 
disregard  every  rule  of  caste,  are  unremitting 
in  their  watchfulness  against  any  defection 
from  that  which  they  desire  to  be  maintained 
as  a  national  faith.  These  stand  ready  to 
employ  measures  no  less  drastic  than  those 
employed  by  the  rigidly  orthodox,  in  order  to 
combat  any  tendency  upon  the  part  of  the 
individual  or  the  family  to  identify  them- 
selves with  the  faith  of  Christ. 

In  the  case  of  Kali  Charan  and  others  of 
that  period,  the  opposition  from  which  they 
suffered  was  due  perhaps  almost  exclusively 
to  the  strong  conviction  based  upon  religious 
sentiment  that  to  abandon  the  principles  and 
observances  of  the  ancestral  faith  meant  utter 
disaster  to  the  individual  for  time  and  eternity. 
When  it  is  remembered  that  the  orthodox 
Hindu  finds  it  impossible  to  even  think  of 
life  as  a  thing  apart  from  religion,  and  that 
every  important  circumstance  of  his  sojourn 
here  has  to  him  a  profound  religious  sig- 
nificance, we  begin  to  understand  something 


The  Old  and  the  New  119 

of  the  nature  of  the  shock  with  which  even 
the  suggestion  of  a  change  in  faith  comes  to 
one  whose  whole  being  is  impregnated  with 
this  idea  as  to  the  scope  and  content  of  re- 
ligion in  relation  to  his  personality.  It  may- 
be said  that  he  is  born,  eats,  sleeps,  bathes, 
marries,  and  dies  religiously,  or,  in  any  case, 
ceremonially;  and  a  definite  breaking  away 
from  this  ceremonial  religion  is  a  cutting- 
loose  not  merely  from  an  unimportant  feature 
of  his  being,  but  from  absolutely  every  thing 
that  he  has  been  taught  to  value.  Although, 
as  has  been  said,  Dr.  Chatter jee  was  not  wont 
to  dwell  upon  the  things  that  he  suffered,  we 
have  no  reason  to  doubt  that  his  experiences 
were  in  no  way  less  trying  than  those  through 
which  we  have  seen  others  pass.  As  we  con- 
template the  young  lad  stepping  forth  from 
his  home  in  obedience  to  the  call  of  God  we 
see  the  beginnings  of  that  triumph  of  faith 
which  was  so  wonderfully  beautiful  and  so  per- 
manently obvious  up  to  the  la:t  hour  of  his 
earthly  service. 

It  was  no  mere  intellectual  process  through 
which  he  passed.  That  might  conceivably 
have  accounted  for  the  earliest  steps  in  his 
career;  indeed,  instances  are  by  no  means 
lacking  to  prove  that  mental  conviction  has 


120     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

sometimes  sufficed  to  carry  the  convert  up  to 
and  even  leyond  the  stage  of  public  profes- 
sion of  faith  through  baptism.  That  God 
wrought  a  work  of  grace  in  his  heart  cannot 
be  doubted.  Quietly,  unflinchingly,  he  made 
a  public  declaration,  and  then,  as  the  years 
passed,  he  continued  to  grow  in  Christian 
knowledge  and  power,  thus  being  prepared  for 
the  work  of  eminent  usefulness  to  which  in 
the  maturity  of  his  powers  he  was  called. 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  whole  hearted 
than  his  renunciation  of  both  Hindu  doctrine 
and  ceremonial.  Many  will  recall  the  fervor 
with  which  he  led  the  old  Synod  of  India  in 
a  protest  against  the  introduction,  or  the  use 
of  individual  cups  at  Communion.  All  could 
not  follow  his  argument  or  share  his  disap- 
proval; but  to  him  the  innovation  seemed  to 
mean  but  one  thing,  the  encouragement  of 
caste  feeling  in  the  Church,  and  he  would  have 
none  of  it. 

In  his  youth  the  enquiring  spirit  had  before 
it  fewer  alternatives  than  now.  Then  the 
choice  was,  in  general,  between  philosophic 
Hinduism  with  all  its  implications  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other,  either  acceptance  of 
the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity,  or 
the  entire  rejection  of  the  supernatural.    And 


The  Old  and  the  New  121 

yet,  there  were  not  a  few  who  shrank  from 
accepting  any  one  of  these  positions.  So  long 
ago  as  1828,  or  a  full  decade  before  the  birth 
of  Kali  Charan,  Rammohan  Roy  had  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  Brahmo  Somaj ;  but  from 
the  time  of  his  death  in  1833  until  1841  it 
had  gained  but  little  influence.  During  the 
period,  therefore,  when  the  many  converts  to 
Christianity  were  gathering  about  the  Scottish 
Missionaries  in  Calcutta,  it  is  to  be  remem- 
bered that  before  them  there  were  but  three 
alternatives:  Old  Hinduism,  Christianity  or 
Atheism.  As  the  years  passed,  many  "half- 
way houses"  between  the  older  faith  of  their 
fathers  and  the  full  acceptance  of  Christ  were 
established.  The  Brahmo  Somaj  under  the 
leadership  of  such  men  as  Devendra  Nath 
Tagore  and  Keshab  Chandra  Sen,  offered  to 
the  young  Hindu  a  monotheistic  faith,  which, 
however,  repudiated  or  ignored  the  Christian 
idea  of  the  Deity  of  Jesus  Christ.  Later  in 
1875,  the  Arya  Somaj  came  into  being  with 
its  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God  and  the  ab- 
solute and  exclusive  authority  of  the  Vedas. 
These  organizations,  not  to  speak  of  a  score 
or  more  of  minor  ones,  have  continued  during 
the  years  that  have  elapsed  since  their  origin, 
to  invite  into  their  membership  the  man  who, 


122     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

revolting  against  idolatry,  and  the  grosser 
evils  of  his  ancestral  faith,  still  not  un- 
naturally shrinks  from  an  open  and  complete 
rupture  with  Hinduism.  This  is  in  itself  suffi- 
cient to  account  for  the  fact  that  in  more 
recent  years  comparatively  few  college  students 
have  been  found  to  pass  at  one  step  from  the 
older  form  of  faith  into  the  full  acceptance 
of  Jesus  Christ  as  Saviour  and  Lord. 

Dr.  Chatter jee  loved  to  dwell,  in  later  years, 
upon  the  marvelous  changes  witnessed  by  him 
in  India  during  his  lifetime.  His  life  cov- 
ered indeed  a  period  more  remarkable  than 
any  previous  one  in  the  history  of  the  coun- 
try, for  the  transformations  it  witnessed.  A 
great  intellectual  awakening  began  in  the 
early  days  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  the 
first  modern  religious  movement,  as  has  been 
seen,  only  a  quarter  of  a  century  later.  This 
is  not  the  place  in  which  to  analyze  the  forces 
which  co-operated  to  produce  this  particular 
awakening;  but  it  may  safely  be  affirmed  that 
there  were,  in  general,  two,  namely,  the 
operations  of  the  British  Government  and  the 
activities  of  the  Protestant  Missionary  So- 
cieties. Government  on  the  one  hand  entered 
upon  a  programme  of  reform,  condemning 
and  prohibiting  customs  that  were  immoral 


The  Old  and  the  New  123 

and  revolting,  in  spite  of  the  sacredness  which 
was  supposed  to  attach  to  many  of  them.  On 
the  other  hand  the  Missionary,  the  real  ally 
of  the  Government,  though  not  in  the  outset 
recognized  as  such,  was  busy  not  only  with 
the  primary  task  of  preaching  the  Gospel  but 
with  the  work  of  furthering  every  cause  that 
had  as  its  object  the  social  and  domestic  uplift 
of  the  people. 

New  ideals  fired  the  imagination  of  hun- 
dreds even  in  the  early  days  of  the  last 
century.  The  way  was  rapidly  prepared  for 
numberless  social  reforms;  and  movements 
which  had  their  origin  then  have  so  grown  in 
form  and  in  the  extent  of  their  influence  that 
the  minds  and  lives  of  many  millions  of  men 
and  women  have  been  touched  and  elevated 
by  them.  The  India  of  today  is  not  the  India 
of  three-quarters  of  a  century  ago.  It  may 
be  doubted  indeed  whether  any  country  has 
undergone  greater  changes  in  life  and  thought 
during  such  a  period,  than  those  which  mark 
the  history  of  Hindustan  during  that  time. 

Old  India  is,  however,  still  recognizable.  A 
land  which  produced  the  Vedas,  the  two  great 
Epic  poems,  and  the  six  systems  of  Philosophy 
and  found  expression  for  its  life  and  thought 
in  these,  is  not  readily  transformed  into  some- 


124     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

thing  new.  A  great  Mohammedan  popula- 
tion of  sixty-six  millions  which  began  its 
growth  more  than  eight  centuries  ago,  does 
not  abandon  its  creed  in  a  day.  But  the  con- 
viction that  the  great  work  to  be  done  in 
India  can  only  be  said  to  have  been  well  be- 
gun, does  not  lessen  one's  feeling  of  amazement 
as  he  compares  the  conditions  of  today  with 
those  of  the  days  preceding  the  great  upturn- 
ing of  1857.  One  of  the  new  conditions  is 
well  illustrated  in  the  Hoshyarpur  District 
itself.  When  the  Mission  was  first  opened, 
accessions  to  the  Church  were  exceedingly 
few.  No  single  community  was  as  a  whole 
inclined  to  give  the  Missionary  a  hearing.  A 
movement  began  among  the  chuhras  in  1888, 
and  out  from  amongst  the  approximately 
twenty  thousand  persons  belonging  to  that 
class  large  numbers  have  been  enrolled  as  mem- 
bers of  the  Church.  Throughout  that  entire 
region  of  the  Pan  jab,  the  Mass  movement 
still  grows  in  volume,  and  people  are  literally 
pressing  into  the  Church.  Evangelists  and 
pastors  are  face  to  face  with  a  tremendous 
problem,  or  rather  a  series  of  problems.  They 
dare  not  admit  to  the  Communion  of  the 
Church  those  who  have  not  been  in  some 
measure  instructed;  and  yet  the  task  of  pro- 


The  Old  and  the  New  125 

viding  adequate  means  of  instruction  is  ap- 
pallingly great. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  period  of  which  we 
speak,  the  years  covered  by  the  active  life  of 
our  great  evangelist,  the  Church  in  India  was 
both  small  and  weak.  He  lived  to  see  a  large 
growth  in  both  numbers  and  spirituality.  He 
saw  its  membership  in  the  beginnings  of  what 
we  believe  to  be  an  era  of  self-propagation, 
self-government  and  self-support.  Although 
the  numerical  results  of  village  work  in  his 
hands  and  in  the  hands  of  his  brethren,  were 
so  great  in  comparison  with  those  resulting 
from  the  employment  of  School  and  College 
as  evangelizing  agencies,  he  never  faltered  in 
his  belief  that  the  latter  should  be  maintained 
in  fullest  operation,  not  only  for  'the  sake  of 
the  Christian  Community,  but  as  practically 
the  only  available  method  of  evangelizing  the 
classes  lying  outside  the  scope  of  the  Mass 
movement.  It  is  remembered  how  on  one 
occasion  he  pointed  with  satisfaction  to  the 
Missionaries  of  the  National  Missionary  So- 
ciety laboring  in  the  Pan  jab,  and  to  the  mem- 
bership of  the  Panjab  Committee  of  Manage- 
ment, as  "almost  without  exception  students 
of  our  College." 

He  was  a  conservative  in  Theology.    In  the 


126     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

days  of  his  preparation  for  licensure  he  care- 
fully studied  the  works  of  Dr.  Chas.  Hodge 
of  Princeton,  and  accepted  fully  the  system 
of  Theology  which  he  found  there.  When 
once  his  own  early  doubts  had  been  removed, 
before  his  baptism,  his  faith  in  the  Divine 
Word  as  the  ultimate  authority  in  all  matters 
of  belief  and  practice  was  apparently  immov- 
able. He  seemed  to  regard  with  a  feeling 
akin  to  amazement  the  state  of  doubt  into 
which  others  sometimes  fall.  The  written 
word  was  so  clearly  to  him  the  voice  of  God, 
that  anything  that  even  appeared  to  call  it  in 
question  was  quite  unthinkable  and  impossible 
as  an  interpretation.  But  though  he  could  not 
understand  unbelief  and  was  shocked  by  it, 
his  heart  was  so  big  and  his  sympathies  so 
wide  that  he  could  love  and  treat  with  utmost 
courtesy  the  most  active  opponent. 

Once  when  a  friend  spoke  to  him  of  some 
of  the  things  maintained  regarding  Hinduism 
in  its  relation  to  Christianity  by  Madame 
Blavatsky  and  Mrs.  Anne  Besant,  he  said: 
"Alas !  Alas !  if  they  but  knew  real  Hinduism ; 
but,  still  more,  if  they  but  knew  Christ,  they 
could  not  think  and  say  such  things." 

He  lived  to  see  a  new  nationalism  in  his 
country.     The  victory  of  Japan  over  Russia 


The  Old  and  the  New  127 

profoundly  impressed  every  enlightened  Asi- 
atic. He  felt  that  at  last  the  tide  of  Euro- 
pean aggression  had  been  turned  back,  and 
that  now  the  time  had  arrived  for  him  to  take 
a  share  in  the  movements  of  the  nations.  Dr. 
Chatter jee  was  himself  an  intense  patriot,  and 
welcomed  the  conservative  Nationalism  of  the 
later  years  of  his  life.  He  felt  that  in  the 
spread  of  this  spirit  was  the  great  hope  of 
India's  advancement.  But  none  could  have 
deplored  more  than  he  the  excesses  into  which 
many  of  his  countrymen  were  led,  or  the 
assumption  that  England  was  in  any  sense  the 
cause  of  the  backward  condition  of  the  coun- 
try. On  the  contrary,  he  recognized  the  fact 
that  it  was  to  England  that  India  owed  her 
emergence  from  the  confusion,  misrule,  strife 
and  degradation  of  the  years  preceding  her 
acquisition  of  authority  in  the  land.  And  more 
than  this,  he  appreciated  to  the  full,  not  only 
the  invaluable  services  rendered  in  the  past, 
but  also  shared  in  the  fullest  recognition  on 
the  part  of  India's  people  that  her  welfare 
for  long  years  to  come  is  inseparably  con- 
nected with  the  maintenance  of  British  author- 
ity in  the  country. 

The  subject  of  this  sketch  was  as  we  have 
seen  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Christian  Church 


128     A  Prince  of  the  Church  in  India 

in  his  country,  gladly  and  cordially  recognized 
as  such  by  his  brethren.  Now  that  he  has 
gone  from  us,  may  we  not  see  in  his  life  a 
message,  left  behind  him,  for  the  Church?  If 
there  be  a  message  and  there  surely  is  one,  it 
ought  not  to  pass  unrecognized  and  unheeded. 
From  young  manhood  to  old  age,  his  life 
exemplified  the  motto,  "This  one  thing  I  do." 
For  himself  he  sought  nothing  in  the  way  of 
material  good  and  God  wonderfully  supplied 
all  his  need.  Honors  he  looked  not  for,  and 
was  surprised  when  they  came.  Position  he 
might  have  had;  but  by  deliberate  choice 
turned  away  from  it  for  the  sake  of  the 
Gospel.  His  was  a  happy  and  marvelously 
useful  life.  It  ended  with  the  words:  "I  am 
a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ."  Beloved  by  all 
who  knew  him,  honored  by  all  who  knew  of 
him  and  his  personality  and  work,  his  memory 
will  abide  in  the  Indian  Church,  a  stimulus, 
we  trust,  to  succeeding  generations  of  young 
men,  some  of  whom  are  even  now  asking,  with 
real  earnestness,  where  and  in  what  spirit  God 
would  have  them  devote  their  lives. 


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Date  Due 


|PNllTl?^nh,i°m9ICal  Semp'nary-Speer  Librar 


1    1012  01040  0754 


